The Legacy Job
by Sunbird Riding Shotgun
Summary: The team takes on a case involving foster kids and Eliot's week gets very long. Case!fic.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes: **Well, as promised, here is my next long!fic. It's likely going to be at least nine chapters long so we'll be at this for awhile.  
I've one quite a bit of reaserch for this but sadly, I lack the kind of reascources and time I'd like. Hopefully most of what you find here on in will be either fact or at the least ledger but please, if I get something hopelessly screwed up, remember this is fanfiction and no one's perfect.  
Lastly, although this is in no ways part of my Black King White Knight verse (which is important for reasons you will eventually discover) I do use the same general backstory. Nate and Eliot still met in Cairo and the various histories are still more or less the same (some small changes), though it's less important to this story and fully explained in text as needed.  
As usual this lovely edited fic is brought to you in part by ALS_Wonderland: She who should be praised.

* * *

**The Legacy Job  
**_Chapter One_

* * *

_Touchstone__ Psychiatric Hospital  
Somerville, Massachusetts_

"Clear your mind, see the whole page, pick a word, focus." Adrian Merrins whispered to herself, locating the last word of the page in her word-find puzzle book. She drew the yellow crayon across the word carefully - if she wasn't careful it would break. That would be annoying and she needed to focus.

She paused, cocking her head to one side listening.

Footsteps in the hall.

Her lips twitched into a brittle smile. It was almost time. She just had to focus. She had a plan.

She had a plan.

She'd practiced. She just had to do it and not be afraid.

Tracy, a girl Adrian had group with, insisted the orderlies here could smell fear. Maybe not, but they would probably think she was having a panic attack and sedate her which would put a hamper in her all important plan.

Yes. She had a plan. "Clear your mind, see the whole page, pick a word, focus." She repeated to herself, curling a little more around herself, bringing her knees and the book she was bracing against them a couple inches closer to her face.

"Clear your mind, see the whole page, pick a word, focus." She repeated one more time, trying to calm her breathing. She really would send herself into a panic attack if she let herself get freaked out over this. And panic attacks would get in the way of the all important plan.

Footsteps outside her room's door. They stopped in front of it.

Adrian dropped her head forward farther, looking at the book without seeing it for once.

"Good morning Adrian. Hard at work already I see." It was Hanna, the nice new orderly. Her plan had hope! "Good god child. You already filled up the other one?"

Adrian didn't look up, though Hanna didn't seem to mind. She was used to Adrian. All the Orderlies were used to Adrian staying quiet and doing as told without comment and only responding when necessary. With a ward full of suicidal and mentally ill patients, having one that quietly did as told and never caused trouble was regarded as a good thing rather than unusual.

"Here's your medicine. It'll be time for Group soon."

As always Adrian untangled a hand from her book, stretching it out palm up to take the Dixie cup of meds.

She pulled it back toward her body when she put her plan into action and broke pattern. She looked up slowly, meeting Hanna's eyes. "Ms. Hanna?" She asked, her voice soft and small, trying to make herself seem as pitiful as a fifteen year old girl in a mental ward could.

Judging by the look Hanna gave her she was right to guess it was pretty pitiful. "What sweetie?"

"Can you do me a favor?"

"I don't know. What is it?"

Adrian dropped her eyes, curling tighter. "When my mom… foster mom… was here she said my friend Kayla was having trouble. I… I was thinking… and I thought she might be off her meds. She does that sometimes. Could… could you call my mom and ask her to see if Kayla's still taking her meds and if she isn't tell her parents they should go get help like they were talking about?" She offered a brittle smile. "I miss her but I don't want her to be my new room mate."

"Oh sweetie… I can do that." Hanna said with a little smile, patting Adrian's shoulder. "Once I've made my rounds. I promise."

Adrian's smile brightened and she nodded before downing the meds and offering back the cup. "Thank you."

"No problem." Hanna said taking the cup and letting herself back out of the room, locking it behind her.

With Hanna gone Adrian let her head fall forward to rest against her knees, breathing out the adrenalin and panic for a moment. Shaded by a screen of her own tangled hair she inched back just enough to look at the three small pills she'd slipped into her palm while distracting Hanna.

Strange, how all of this madness (literal and figurative) could revolve around such a tiny thing. There it was. A long thin white pill called Zo-tien, an antidepressant supposedly chemically designed for teens and children.

Even if they'd filed off the brand mark she could recognize it at a glance in her med cup.

She'd have to figure out where to hide these.

She closed her hand around the pills, pushing down the anxiety and fear. She focused on breathing through the most recent episode, her chest tensing up, blood pounding in her ears as she just breathed.

Clear your mind, see the whole page, pick a word, focus.

She hoped her foster mother, Selina, didn't think a month in a psych ward was making Adrian go crazy.

She hoped Selina would understand that even if Selina was good it was only a matter of time before they found out Adrian wasn't taking her meds and then…

Selina should act now.

Adrian just hoped they wouldn't kill her until after Zocrolf Pharmaceuticals had been taken down. It'd be nice to live long enough to get revenge for the others, and herself.

She pushed herself to stand, looking for a hiding place for the pills. She had a goal. She just had to focus. She just had to survive a few more weeks and she'd see her legacy come to light.

She could Rest after that.

**oOo**

_Eliot Spencer's Apartment  
Boston, MA_

Normally, Eliot Spencer only slept ninety minutes a night. It was the minimal he could get down to before sacrificing functionality in the long run.

Still, there were times he slept longer. Like, for instance, when it was two o'clock on a Sunday and he hadn't slept since sometime Thursday and he'd been to three different countries and done the reconnaissance for both a personal job and one for the team.

It was Sunday. Everything was nicely tied up, his apartment was in perfect order, his roof top garden cared for, and his cell phone's ring volume turned all the way up. It was Sunday and he was ready for a good long rest.

He might even get extravagant and sleep for six hours. No, he was getting soft enough already. Five should be enough.

He was a little more than an hour into that well deserved sleep when his cell phone rang, pulling him back into the waking world.

He fumbled with his phone, normally lethal hands clumsy with exhaustion, not even bothering to check to see who was calling before answering. There were only five people in the world who knew this number.

"Someone better be in trouble or I will kill whoever's calling." He grumbled into the phone, forcing himself up and thinking through the process of getting ready to go save someone's ass.

"I managed to catch you sleeping again I see." The amused tone of the voice made Eliot pause and relax back down onto the bed, closing his eyes but smiling. "Let me see, oh. Three o'clock on a Sunday. Sounds about right for you. If I asked would you at least tell me how many continents you've been to in the past seventy two hours? Or if you'd slept at all in that time?"

"Three" Eliot answered with a sigh. "And no." He opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. "Not that I don't like hearing from my little sis every now an' then but is somthin' up?" He asked. They were as close as you could be considering the life he led but the calls were few and far between. It was safer for everyone that way.

"Nothin's wrong, though little El' and Marie miss their uncle now that they know him a little better. Any chance Mr. Ford will be giving you a few days off in a while? El's birthday is in a few weeks and you haven't been home for a visit since before your team got back together. "

Eliot sighed. Phone calls were few. Visits should have been fewer but somehow he'd managed to tumble back "home" to his sisters place more and more often in recent years. "I don't know sis. I have ta be careful."

"And if you leave town you'll probably come home to someone dead, someone in prison, and the crazy girl hoarding half the world's currency. I know." Joey added, poking fun at him in the way only a little sister would get away with, halfway across the country or not. "Anyway, I've got a project for you ta work on. Well, two really. First is ta try and find a babysitter for your team for a couple of days. Don't worry ya, got seven or eight months at do it." An alarm went off in Eliot's head. "Second, I want you ta start thinkin' up some names you like."

It only took Eliot another moment before he sat up, smile widening. "You're pregnant?"

He could hear the proud smile on Jo's voice as she responded. "Doctor confirmed it Friday, I've been trying to reach you all weekend."

"Wait, names? You want me ta pick a name?"

"Yeah." Joey confirmed. "You got eight months, so pick something good. Otherwise when they complain I'll tell them to blame you."

Eliot wasn't quite through processing that last bombshell when his brain rebooted only to freeze again and he really needed to spend less time around Hardison. "Wait. They? Twins?"

"Uhuh." Joey replied, though her voice trailed off at the end. "I have to go. Your nephew is trying to climb the old oak in the back again. He only just got the cast off from the last time he tried. I'll call on Friday for what you've come up with."

The line went dead before Eliot could protest that she'd said he had eight months.

Eliot hung up and lay down again, resisting the temptation to do something incredibly undignified like burry his head under a pillow to block out the world. He took a deep breath, and then another one, and finally felt himself relaxing a little bit more.

He'd think about baby names later, and the fact there would soon be two more small children in his sister's life that he'd have to find someway to safeguard against the perils of their uncle's world . Nate was interviewing a new client tomorrow, so Eliot would be on the job this week and probably have as much down time as he normally did when the rest of the pieces were moving themselves.

He'd think about all this tomorrow.

Right now he was getting some sleep.

**oOo**

It never changed, Nate thought, watching their newest client from across the table. Young, old, married, single, male, or female. They always looked tired when they took that seat. They always had the same mix of resignation and fragile hope.

Something about it made Nate almost wish he'd ordered something stronger than coffee.

Selina Locklin was a middle aged woman, her dark brown hair showing just a few hints of gray, face etched with the beginnings of laugh and frown lines equally. She was dressed professionally and seemed composed, despite what Nate already knew of her story that had been the basis for the meeting.

With the introductions over, Nate mentally braced himself and asked the woman to tell her story.

"I work with Protective Services." Selina began, giving a small smile to the waitress who brought her a mug of coffee before turning her attention back to Nate and Sophie. "I used to work with foster kids in general, but a few years ago I started being assigned to work exclusively with kids in the system suffering from mental illnesses. I organized programs to get them the help they need, did home visits to make sure they were doing alright, I even ran a sort of support group for them where they could meet together and help each other." She smiled and Nate didn't need to be half the profiler he was to see the hint of pride in her eyes. "I didn't have much help, but the difference the attention was making was actually being recognized…" She sighed. "Until…"

"Budget cuts." Nate supplied. With the way the country's economy was going there were few programs that hadn't seen the axe.

"I got pulled back to regular duty." She answered with a nod. "All the programs got canceled, we didn't have the funding or man power anymore. That was bad enough but…" She let out a long sigh. "The state provides foster families with money to get the kids meds and some therapy. After the programs got the axe about fifty kids who were considered "low risk" lost the government funding. Some of their parents were willing to take over but for the others… The people who decided all this weren't doctors, they didn't account for how dangerous taking someone off an antidepressant cold turkey can be."

"When Zocrolft Pharmaceuticals announced they wanted to help, I was suspicious." She gave a self deprecating smile. "I admit I've been on the job too long. Even my kids say I'm more paranoid than they are." Nate nodded, it had taken him some time to convince her they legitimately wanted to help her. "But they said they were producing a new anti-depressant chemically designed for children and teenagers and providing free meds for foster children who needed them was a perfect way to generate good PR. It was a win-win situation and it wasn't my choice."

As Nate watched, she returned her attention to her coffee mug, taking a breath as she reached the hard part. The part where the clients told them how they'd been royally screwed, who it had hurt, and how trying to fix it had only made matters worse. "When did you realize something was wrong?" He asked gently.

"Jacob Downing was the first suicide." Selina answered softly. "He was sixteen and smart with a bright future, despite the manic depression. He was considered low risk but these things happen. " She gave a bitter laugh. "I work with kids who statistically have a suicide rate ten times the national average. We lose a couple a year. I… I don't like it, but you learn to live with it and move on or you burn out." She took another drink of coffee. "After Jacob came Jessica Wiler. Then Michaela Marks. All in less than a month. I found out that there had been three failed attempts. These kids had one main thing in common. They'd been considered low risk. A month after they started Zo-Tien, this supposed miracle drug, a tenth of the kids on it had tried to kill themselves."

There was a long silence as the full implications sank in. Six deaths was bad. Six kids, six foster kids which held a certain sway considering Parker and Hardisons backgrounds…

Sophie recovered first. "You went to your superiors?"

"I went to my boss, Mr. Randolf, head of my department, and his boss, but nothing happened. There was another suicide and another failed attempt while I waited for them to do something. I… there were a handful of kids I was still in contact with - I told them to stop taking their meds." She gave a look of disbelief. "There was one more attempted suicide and then suddenly all the meds got taken back, the project was canceled, the files on the database about it deleted, and the entire matter shuffled under the rug. I… I hit my breaking point and quit. I had some money saved up, figured I had some time to figure out what to do next."

"That's when you applied for custody of Adrian?"

Selina nodded. "Adrian Merrins. I knew her from the group sessions. She started coming in when she was thirteen, low risk but at that age there was plenty of chances she'd get worse as she got older. She was one of the early suicide attempts. Michaela was her foster sister, they made a suicide pact. Michaela succeeded, Adrian didn't. By the time I quit, Adrian had been kicked out of her foster family and I guess I still wanted to help these kids if I could. I didn't really think they'd let me take her but they did." She gave a small smile, reaching into her purse to dig out a picture of a smiling blonde girl in her mid teens.

"I had her for six months. Things were hard but… she was doing better, and we were making it work. She even started calling me Mom." Selina shook her head. "I'm forty five years old and divorced. I always thought just having my foster kids would be enough but my Adrian… " She looked up to meet Nate's eyes. "Do you have children Mr. Ford?"

Nate breathed through the pain that twisted his chest at that question. "I did."

Selina looked down. "Oh. I'm… I'm sorry." She let out a long breath, taking it in before pressing forward. "I tried to move on, to focus on Adrian. I didn't know if there was anything I could do, but I kept my eyes open. When I found out that Zo-Tien's release date was pushed back further I went digging. It was half determination, half dumb luck but I found a hint of something and followed it. I found out Zo-Tien hadn't been tested under normal circumstances. Instead of getting a test group the normal way, they bribed a couple of officials and used my kids as lab rats. I was still trying to figure out what to do next when social services came out of the blue and took Adrian and put her in a state run psych ward."

"Collateral." Nate muttered.

Selina nodded. "I was approached outside my house. I keep my mouth shut or Adrian's next suicide attempt will succeed." She pulled a piece of paper out of her bag and slid it across the table. It was a photo copy of a suicide note "signed" by Adrian. "I got that in the mail four days later."

"When did this happen?" Nate asked as Sophie looked over the note.

"A little over a month ago. I didn't know to do. I didn't know who was watching me or how and if I tried anything I was afraid… if it wasn't for the message Adrian got to me I might have not even talked to you."

"The message?" Sophie asked.

"She wanted me to check to make sure Kayla was still taking her meds." Nate was about to ask for further explanation when Selina saw their confused expressions. "Kayla is what Adrian called Michaela. She's been dead for nearly a year. She was the first to stop taking the Zo-Tien and got Adrian to stop too until their foster parents made them start again."

Nate was just beginning to make the connection when Sophie spoke. "They're making Adrian take Zo-Tien."

Selina nodded. "I don't know what their game plan is, but I don't think what I do matters anymore. They're trying to kill Adrian. All I've got left is getting this public before they succeed."

**oOo**

Hardison slid into Nate's apartment a little after noon. Nate and Sophie were meeting with the client downstairs, Parker was god only knew where, and Eliot was probably running errands or whatever he did that resulted in him having the food needed to feed them all over the course of a job. After the fiasco that was the job with the food company, they weren't feeling particularly eager to get a head start on recon without Nate's go-ahead.

Hardison took a couple steps into the apartment before amending his previous train of thought. Eliot wasn't running errands or whatever it was he did in his off time. He was sitting on a stool at Nate's kitchen counter working on the laptop Hardison had given him for the few times Eliot actually needed one.

Judging from his expression though, and how quickly Eliot shut the laptop's screen, it was not something he felt inclined to share.

"Dude, remember what Nate said about looking at porn in his kitchen?" Hardison called as he walked over to his couch and started setting up his stuff. Eliot ignored his teasing, slowly opening his computer back up and typing a few moments to close out whatever he'd been working on. "You working a side job?"

Before Eliot could answer his cell rang and he turned away from Hardison to answer it. "Nate?... Okay… yeah… Be down in a minute." He hung up and started packing up his stuff. "They're done. I'm keeping an eye on our client until the recon's done and we're ready to move her to a safe house." Hardison nodded. That was more or less standard procedure now, since the near disaster with Perry.

Eliot headed out and Hardison settled down. He made it seven whole minutes before he gave into his curiosity.

It was the work of all of a minute for Hardison to get a hold of Eliot's search history and what he found made a look of something between horror and devious glee cross his face.

In the past two hours Eliot had hit four different baby name sites (all for only a couple minutes before they'd been hastily navigated away from) and found several articles about the pre-natal care for twins.

When Sophie and Nate came in twenty minutes later they found Hardison typing furiously. Parker responded to their questioning looks before the hacker could. Sitting on a couch across from Hardison (where she hadn't been moments before) she looked to Nate and Sophie with a big smile. "Hardison thinks Eliot's pregnant."

Sophie and Nate blinked, stunned and stuttering for some kind of answer. Hardison turned his screen around to show them. "Eliot spent the morning searching baby names, pre-natal doctors, and nursery catalogues. There's only one thing that's going to make someone like Eliot do that."

There was a moment of silence before Nate spoke the words they were all thinking, shock on his voice. "Eliot's having a kid."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes: **Chapter two. Not much to add besides that this is betaed by she who should be praised: ALS_wonderland

* * *

**The Legacy Job  
**_Chapter Two_

* * *

There were some days Nate was reminded of how very glad he was that the members of his team were on his side.

Today was one of them.

It had taken the better part of a half hour to get them to all refocus on the job rather than on Eliot's pending fatherhood. His reminders of what Eliot would do if he found out about all the snooping they were doing had fallen flat. He wasn't sure when it had happened but somewhere along the lines, everyone on the team had stopped being even a little afraid of the chance that one of the world's most dangerous hitters would ever raise a hand to strike any of them.

The team's antics were pretty amusing though, he almost wished Eliot had been around when Parker had called him a Teddy Bear.

After taking a reasonable time to adjust to the situation they were hard at work. Hardison did back ground checks and preliminary hacking to finish what they'd done before the meeting, Sophie made a few calls, and Parker watered the plants before picking locks from her box while hanging upside down from his stairs.

Business as usual.

Then when things were done and settled with the recon, Nate determined there was enough groundwork to take the job and called Eliot to let him know he should take Selina to the safe house. He'd barely even hung up the phone when Sophie and Parker had gathered around Hardison.

Nate walked over to investigate only to find Hardison had brought back up the nursery catalogue Eliot had been on long enough to actually look at cribs.

"I think she's having twins." Hardison said, clicking on another link. "Pre-natal care for twins and the mother, an article on the difference between single births and twins, I think he…" Hardison's voice faded a little. "But nothing at all about pregnancy in general. Some of these key phrases he used in the search aren't somthin' a guys gonna know unless he's al…" Hardison's voice faded.

"Already had a kid." Sophie finished, her voice hushed. "You think he has children out there that we don't know about?"

They all fell silent, different little bits and pieces swirling around in their minds. Yes, Eliot could go into chef mode, but during the day in and day out meals they'd had as a team, he'd proven he knew how to cook for a family while dealing with Parker and Hardison harassing him like overgrown kids. Every holiday they'd been together Eliot had disappeared either on it or for a few days before or after, and covered his tracks so well even Hardison couldn't find him. How good he was with kids. How personally he'd taken a father abusing his son.

How, if Nate was honest, more than anyone else, Eliot seemed to be able to comprehend, even if he didn't know firsthand, what losing Sam had done to him.

Their continued shock was interrupted by a cell phone call. Nate answered, forcing his voice normal as short confirmations were exchanged; Eliot had picked up Selina and was picking up some stuff from her place before taking her to the safe house and would be coming back for the briefing soon.

By the time Nate had closed his phone the others had dispersed, returning to their usual activities, no sign or sound that anything was out of the ordinary. Just another day at the office.

Nothing to see, move along.

Yeah, some days he was reminded how good at what they did they all were.

**oOo**

Eliot wasn't sure when he'd become the automatic choice for bodyguard for a Mark. Yeah, he was the team's muscle, but he was a Hitter. Hitters hit people. They didn't protect people. They protected themselves. Nate and the others had once had a very clear understanding of that. Nate had been the one to take Perry to the safe house during their first job. He'd seen to the other client's safety for awhile afterward. The others had seen to their own safety and Eliot had looked after himself.

So how did he end up here, in Selina Lauklin's house, listening to her buzz around her kitchen using what was left of the fifteen minutes he'd given her to get her stuff together to go to the safe house? He didn't know when he'd become his Team's white knight protector. He didn't know when he'd become their Client's white knight protector.

All he did know was that things were seriously out of control.

He scanned out the front window again before moving to check the back. He felt anxious. There had been no direct threat on Selina's life but that didn't mean someone wasn't out to get her.

A curse, not the first in the past twenty minutes, came from the kitchen followed by a crash of glass.

Eliot was at the doorway in under two seconds, ready to fight only to find Selina kneeling on the floor trying to use the sleeve of her shirt to brush shards of glass from a frame away from the paper it had protected until recently. He walked to the sink, grabbed the dishtowel and knelt to help if only to keep the woman from slicing up her hands on his watch.

"Sorry…Sorry." Selina muttered, taking her hands away but keeping her head down. Eliot didn't have to see her face to recognize the hoarseness in her voice was from crying. The kind that was somewhere between frustrated and afraid that had been kept on that edge for far too long.

Eliot really really wished Sophie was there. She was the one who knew how to handle this kind of shit.

"Hey, hey… it's okay." He muttered, finishing clearing the glass away so it was safe to pick up the paper. It was a page torn out of a word search, of all things. He looked at it a long moment, not really understanding the significance.

"When she's having a hard time Adrian does word searches, it distracts her, gives her mind something to focus on when she's trying to deal with just breathing. When I first got her she'd go through two or three entire books in a single week, more if she was having trouble sleeping." Selina said, gently taking the paper from him. "She'd also look for names of people she knew and other things…" She trailed off, looking it over a moment before pointing to a spot and showing it to Eliot. "She gave me this a week before she was taken, said it was proof of fate." The words "Selina" and "Adrian" had been circled, intersecting at the "a".

Selina carefully folded the piece of paper and put it in her purse. "I'll finish cleaning this up when we get home. I've got most of my things ready to go." She turned away, wiping off her face. "Do I have time to put together some stuff for Adrian, for once we get her back?"

Eliot glanced at the clock. He had told Selina fifteen minutes twelve minutes ago but there had been no direct threat.

"You've got seven minutes." Eliot said.

Yeah. This whole caring about people thing was getting really out of hand.

Selina nodded, and grabbed a battered black messenger bag off a peg by the door between the kitchen and the dining room; a room that looked like it served as the little house's office. Selina bustled around the dinning room table again. Unlike before, though, when she'd been sorting through the half of the table littered with the folders and case files from her work and the investigating she'd done, now she was pulling things off the other half. Judging from the neat pile of word puzzle books Selina slipped into the bag, handful of notebooks, textbooks, and novels it had been Adrian's half, left untouched since the girl had been taken.

When Eliot got back from checking the front window once more, Selina was shutting the battered old laptop that had sat in the middle of the workspace, retrieved the power supply, and removed the flash drive. She shook her head. "Kids these days… I swear Adrian wouldn't care if I brought her nothing to wear so long as I didn't forget Matthew." Eliot was about to ask when Selina shook her head. "The laptop. According to Adrian, electronics work better if you name them." She slid it into the messenger bag with the power supply and flash drive. "I'll just grab her some clothes and we can get out of here.

Eliot nodded and watched her go. He checked the area twice more before they left. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. No bugs. No spies. Nothing.

But he still couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched.

**oOo**

When Eliot got back, the others had settled in front of the TV. Hardison waited until he'd grabbed a drink and settled down before beginning "Zocrolft Pharmaceuticals" Hardison said, clicking his remote to start running it. "Not the biggest company out there but they're growing. They specialize in medicines for mental disorders, specifically anti-depressants. Three years ago they announced they were working on a product specifically for the use of depressed teens and children. See, anti-depressants all have a risk of increasing suicidal behavior and in kids and teens… well it gets a whole lot more common. Zo-Tien was meant to be different."

He clicked again, pictures of a dozen teenagers sliding onto the screen. "It was I guess." He added, voice half bitter, half ironic.

"It was worse." Eliot guessed.

"I checked out our client's story and confirmed it. Of the fifty kids who were on the drug there were five suicides." Five of the pictures on the screen faded away. "The attempts were harder to track, I've only got confirmation on these three, and of course, Adrian Merrins." All but one of the pictures faded away and Hardison expanded it, a few more clicks brought up a file next to the recent school photo.

"This is our client's foster daughter, Adrian Merrins, one of the first failed suicide attempts. After a few weeks in a Psych Ward she was released back to her foster parents. She spent the next eight months bouncing between three different foster families before our client took her in. After six months Selina's investigating caught the wrong person's notice and they took Adrian as collateral. She's currently in the North Valley Psychiatric Hospital just outside Somerville."

"Getting her out is the first step." Nate added with a little nod. "After she's safe we can work on Zocrolft."

"I've done some research the person in charge of the testing at Zocrolft." Hardison continued. He clicked to bring up two pictures. "This is Joshua Milton, head of the department of Zocrolft that covers testing. Rich, Ivy League School, belongs to a golf club, new Rolex and Mustang every six months. Also? The guy probably uses a magic eight ball to decide what tie to wear. Check this." He clicked the remote bringing up five pictures. "Personal travel advisor for his yearly trip, personal stock broker, personal money manager, interior designer and fashion consultant, and of course his personal connection to the world beyond Mrs. Delores the Mysterious."

"Superstitious?" Eliot asked.

"Lets just say she's living rather nicely for a medium who doesn't have many clients."

Nate smiled and nodded. "Alright. Lets get Adrian back." With a satisfied nod he got up and headed upstairs to grab his gear before they headed out.

Parker watched Nate leave and leaned over to whisper to Eliot. "He didn't say what we're going to steal. Oooh…" She sniffed and drew away standing up. It was a known fact (at least she considered it known fact) that their jobs went sideways when Nate didn't give their "Lets go steal a…" rallying cry. And jobs involving kids also went sideways (Serbia, The Bank Job, the job when they came back together, the job at the private school). They went bad even when he said their rallying cry.

A job involving kids when Nate didn't say what they were stealing?

"Someone's gonna get shot in the face." Parker mumbled turning to look to Eliot. "Be very careful. Your kids need you too much for you to get shot in the face and die."

There was a long moment of silence as Sophie and Hardison froze and the look of confusion on Eliot's face quickly morphed into annoyance. "HARDISON!"

Parker watched as Eliot turned and stalked out after the hacker who had wisely chosen that as a good moment to flee the room.

Parker slid next to Sophie and watched them leave the apartment. Quietly she muttered. "I think Hardison's going to be the one shot in the face."

"I don't know Parker. I think Hardison's safe from that." Sophie answered, neither taking their eyes off the door. "Eliot doesn't like guns remember?"

"Oh. Right." Parker answered, not feeling comforted.

**oOo**

There were some days Nate was glad they were all on the same side now. Some days he was well and truly impressed by the others.

Parker accidentally revealing what the team knew and the half hour spent getting them back to some kind of focus was not one of those particular bright shining moments.

After stopping Eliot from murdering Hardison (or scaring him to death, because the fact Eliot hadn't actually laid a finger on Hardison by that point suggested he had no intention to actually get violent), and getting everyone to get their gear, Nate was feeling like a kindergarten teacher.

Then it was into their van, on the way to the North Valley Psychiatric Hospital for the retrieval of Adrian so they could move into the rest of the job.

Of course Eliot, their expert on retrieving people, was having a bit of a hard time conferring with Nate about strategy. Hardison, who'd found hacking his way into the hospital's database was relatively easy, had gotten over his fear, and was tag teaming Eliot with Parker's help to try to get information, with Sophie contributing from the drivers seat every now and then.

Nate had to hide his amusement as the man who Nate knew for fact had withstood months and ungodly amounts of torture at the hands of experts, looked about to crack under the weight of sheer annoyance.

As amusing as it was though, they really needed to focus for a few minutes. The extraction should be easy enough to plan, but at this rate it would take a four hour drive instead of a forty minute one.

"Hardison, Parker, I need Eliot for ten minutes. Can we have a bit of focus here?"

Nate and Eliot had actually more or less gotten through the plan, and were explaining it to the others, when Hardison's computer started letting off a distressing series of beeps. A moment later all their cell phones started chiming merrily.

"What the…?" Nate barely started before Hardison's fingers were flying over the keyboard. "It's the alarm at the safe house Selina's staying in." Hardison made a few more clicks and brought up a screen of footage showing someone trying to break down the reinforced back entry to the safe house.

Eliot's cell phone stopped making the alarm sound and rang. "Yeah, we know." He answered, nodding to Nate that it was Selina. "You're gonna be fine darlin', it's gonna take them a bit to get in there and we've got a way out for you. Now listen here's whatcha need ta do."

"Sophie pull over." Nate said, glad they were still on a city street. "I don't know how they found the safe house but trying to kill Selina means they're moving for an endgame. You three keep going, get Adrian out and stay safe. I need Eliot with me to pick up Selina because we know she's got armed men after her." He looked from Hardison to Parker and then met Sophie's eyes in the rearview mirror. He was saying that they wouldn't have Eliot to protect them if things went south. "If things go south get out and get away."

They all nodded, their expressions serious in contrast to the earlier teasing.

"Meet up at the east side safe house. If you're back before us I want you to scope out my apartment, see if it's safe to go back to."

Another round of nods.

Eliot put a hand on his shoulder, gesturing out the back, still on the phone to talk Selina through the backdoor out of the not-so-safe house.

They had to move. They were at least ten minutes from where they'd stashed Selina, even with Eliot doing the driving.

They climbed out of the back of the van and Nate took over the phone, talking Selina through the retreat, suppressing his honest man's instinct (figuring they'd fix it later) as Eliot picked a car's lock, climbed in, and hotwired it at a speed that had Parker nodding approvingly as she closed the doors behind them. The others took off as Nate climbed in, braced himself, and Eliot started to drive.

Three minutes later Nate had navigated Selina out (well, down, out through a well hidden and locked passage into a service elevator to an abandoned entrance to sewage service tunnels, over a block, and up into an entire different building that had a safe house and a panic room.)

Long minutes later they parked outside the building and entered, checking Hardison's alarms to make sure they were still active as they went. Nate kept the phone conversation going until they'd reached the internal entry and the door opened. A rather shaken looking Selina stepped out, hugging a black messenger bag to her stomach. "I… I know…" She was trying to say something but it looked like she was a little past articulating herself.

"It's alright. We've got you." Nate said, attempting to sound comforting. "Come on. We'll get you somewhere safe." They kept a car in the parking lot, ready for the hasty get away they needed right now.

"Safe…" She managed, nodding, relaxing. The adrenalin rush of fleeing for her life looked like it was wearing off and leaving her wiped.

They ended up herding her down the stairs between the two of them, Nate marveling at human behavior as they stepped out into the parking lot. With the team he'd almost forgotten how normal people reacted to having a very implicate threat to their lives. Hardison would be quoting some…

His phone rang and he picked it up. "Got her Hardison?"

"No." Hardison said, confusion in his voice. "It's not her."

"What do you mean it's not her?"

"We went to the room of Adrian Merrins and it was some other girl. She's not here."

"Wh-" Nate's response was interrupted as something warm sprayed across his face, a moment before an unfortunately familiar pain exploded through his right side knocking him back. He register the sound of guns and was somewhat aware of Selina's body hitting the ground before another sharp blow knocked him into Oblivion.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes:** Sorry RekkaKouyuu.  
Beta'ed by she who should be praised: ALS_wonderland

* * *

**The Legacy Job  
**_Chapter 3_

* * *

Selina was dead.

Eliot knew that for certain. A sniper shot had hit her directly between the eyes, splattering him and Nate with blood and brain matter and throwing her corpse back onto the ground before Eliot's mind finished registering the sound of a_ M110 Semi-Automatic _sniper rifle_. _

Eliot turned, moving too slow to be able to prevent the next shot from hitting Nate in the side. _22 caliber handgun. _His mind almost taunted him with the knowledge as he dove toward Nate. _Sniper above, gunmen on the ground. What do you say about not using guns now?_

Eliot felt a line of fire skim his arm as he pushed Nate down, his mind forming a picture, tracing the trajectories of the shots fired to locate the shooters without taking the deadly half second to look.

Selina was dead. But he and Nate were still very much alive and the important thing right then was to keep it that way.

The sniper was in the building on the other side of the parking lot, either in a top floor or on the roof. The men on the ground were from the side of the parking lot farthest from the main road.

At least down on the ground they had a couple cars for cover. Very little cover.

A window exploded over their heads and Eliot half grumbled about the lack of bullet proof cars. "Nate this remind you of Cairo?" He asked, only noticing when he glanced back that Nate was out cold.

And the side of his head was bleeding.

Eliot dropped back to Nate's side, guessing the fact the guys shooting at them didn't know he didn't carry a gun was the reason they were waiting a moment before coming out to finish them off. Carefully Eliot touched the side of Nate's head, nearly thanking god when he saw it was just a graze. It was a bone deep graze that showed an alarming strip of Nate's skull but considering the possibilities, it could have been much, much worse.

Still, it wouldn't matter much if Eliot couldn't get them out of this mess alive.

There was a goon squad of at least three armed gunmen, and a sniper way up in a building who Eliot couldn't honestly do much about from here.

At the moment they had a couple cars for cover from the sniper but if Eliot had to fight…

The four men started to make their way across the parking lot, picking up speed and Eliot braced himself, ready to move to take them out or die trying…

They didn't come near him, they stayed in the range of efficacy, their stance said ex-military who knew what they were doing and oh crap he was so very dead.

If he dived forward, to the left, and down, tucked and rolled and came up to the right he might be able to avoid the rounds they fired, the secondary rounds, and reach the first guy. He could use him as a shield to get to the second one and then…

But even though they trained their guns on him they didn't make a move to fire. It was like a western standoff.

Then the fourth one lowered his gun, walked forward through the no mans land and knelt beside Selina's body.

Eliot changed plans, tensing to go after guy #4 when guy #1 spoke up. "Make a move and I kill your friend. Stay nice and still and let us get what we want and we all leave here alive." A thin smirk crossed his face. "Well, the rest of us do."

Guy #4 had, of all things, picked up Adrian's messenger bag that Selina had been clutching when they'd "rescued" her. He opened it and pulled out the laptop, letting the bag drop. He backed away slowly and the four beat a hasty retreat. A jeep rolled up and they all climbed in, disappearing out onto the main road the next minute.

Eliot picked up the cell phone Nate had dropped, hearing Hardison's panicked voice on the other end. "We were ambushed. Get out now!" He more growled than said.

"Ambush… what?" Hardison said, fumbling. Eliot heard him say to someone on his side of the phone. "We have to go now. Get Sophie."

Eliot put pressure on the wound on Nate's side. "Selina's dead, Nate's down. I need an ambulance here two minutes ago."

"There'll be one there soon. Meet at the hospital."

Eliot kept pressure on the wound, waiting for sirens, his mind turning furiously. Nate was the big plan guy. He was the one who could make sense of all this.

How did they find them? How did this get set up? What were they after? Was it to kill Selina and if so why take the laptop? Was it just the laptop? What would a 15 year old have on her laptop?

_Matthew._ A voice that sounded too much like Hardison's in his head reminded him.

"_**Kids these days… I swear Adrian wouldn't care if I brought her nothing to wear so long as I didn't forget Matthew." Eliot was about to ask when Selina shook her head. "The laptop. According to Adrian, electronics work better if you name them." She slid it into the messenger bag with the power supply and flash drive.**_

Flash drive… there'd been a flash drive.

Eliot flew across the short stretch between Nate and the fallen messenger bag, digging into and producing the flash drive that had been left behind, shoving it into his pocket and returning to Nate.

Sirens blared in the distance, and Eliot tried to piece together some kind of cover story while he kept Nate from bleeding out. Somewhere between deciding a mugging gone bad would work long enough for them to get their stories straight and work their usual magic, and watching the ambulance round the corner, a sound somewhere between a disturbed laugh and a angry roar bubbled out from his chest.

Too much, too quick, too dead.

He let himself turn into a panicked civilian as the EMTs arrived to take over, feeling like he didn't have to act as much as he might have usually.

He was going soft. He was getting used to people he cared about not dying. As much abuse as he took, he'd almost started to believe the fallacy that he could protect those around him.

He'd let himself Care.

The EMTs tried to dress the graze on his arm but Eliot shook them off, climbing into the ambulance after they'd gotten Nate in.

He watched as they worked furiously to save Nate even as the engine roared to life and they drove off toward the local hospital.

He'd let himself start caring and looked what happened.

**oOo**

Eliot had been waiting outside the emergency room for just under a half hour when the others burst in.

He wished he could tell them more than just that Nate was on the table and at this point no news was good news. He knew from experience that a bullet to the side meant it could be hours before they'd gotten Nate completely out of danger and that for the first hour you didn't want anyone talking to you.

The first hour in surgery was the one where it was most likely something would go wrong with the smallest possibility the doctor'd come out and be able to say "Hey, no problem man, he's gonna be just fine. He'll be annoying you all again as soon as the morphine wears off."

Sometime later, while they were waiting, Eliot would address the fact that his mental version of a doctor was starting to talk like Hardison.

They pulled off to one corner, getting as much privacy as they could as they sorted out the details. He knew from the expression on all their faces they had moved well and firmly into the state of denial of anything Eliot told them that had happened. They'd process it later but right then and right there they needed to take the next few steps to keep things moving and not going farther south than they already had.

They got their story straight. They were only in the outskirts of Boston, not even that far from where Nate had lived once, so they all agreed with the snap decision Eliot had made to use Nate's real name. They could con, hack, and steal any hint of this they didn't want on his record. It would be much easier to work the system than back track and recover if they ran into someone who knew Nate. They were Nate's landlord/friend (Hardison), girlfriend (Sophie or "Katherine"), girlfriend's best friend (Parker), and best friend (Eliot). They'd been helping a friend (Selina) who had been trying to track down an old friend when they'd been attacked.

It wasn't the most ingenious cover story by far but considering what they had to work with it would have to do.

As they finished getting their story straight little spider web cracks started to appear in their togetherness. Reality was starting to sink in and they were all stumbling.

"What happened at the hospital?" Eliot prompted. He'd already told them what happened on his end.

After a moment Sophie picked up the story. "We got in. The identity I had from the job with Hurly worked it's usual charms. We got to the room, Parker was all ready to play the new foster sister eager to get her little sister home, opened the door and it wasn't Adrian."

"It was a girl the same age." Hardison said. "She looked completely different though. She was drugged up high as a kite and her records said she had sever schizophrenia. None of the orderlies had thought anything of her claims to "Not being Adrian""

The conversation faded for a moment and they waited, thinking, trying to figure out what to do next.

"I know we all want ta be here until we get news 'bout Nate." Eliot started slowly. "But if Adrian's not already dead she probably will be by then."

Sophie suddenly spoke up. "Selina said Adrian got her a message. See if you can trace that back to her. It was at least a week ago."

Hardison was already opening his computer and starting to type.

"She said her name was Mellissa Calhone." Parker said. At the curious looks Parker explained further. "The not Adrian girl. She said her name was Mellissa Calhone."

"Look to see if there's a Mellissa Calhone in the system." Eliot said. "They might have pulled a switch or somethin'." He opened his mouth to continue but the room ground to a halt.

The door opened and a middle aged doctor stepped in.

Eliot felt his stomach clench when he heard. "Are you here for Nathan Ford?"

Sophie got up, bolting over to the doctor quickly. "Yes. Any news?"

"He's still in surgery." The doctor said. "I just came to ask if anyone's contacted Nate's mother."

There was a brief moment of silence before the doctor explained. "I went to high school with Nate. Our parents were in the same parish until a few years ago. Unless she's moved in the past three years his mother only lives a half hour from here." He pulled out a card and wrote something on it. "I have other patients I need to see but this is her number." He handed it off to Sophie before excusing himself.

Eliot let out a long breath before nodding mentally. "Sophie, call her. Hardison-"

"Nothing yet. Even I can't do anything in thirty seconds." Parker's atonal laughter seemed to echo sharply in the silence.

"Is the van still outside?" Eliot asked.

Sophie nodded. "I'm going to have to go outside to call." She said, silently adding _get me the second anything changes. _Eliot nodded as she slipped out.

"Parker I want you doing physical surveillance. Keep out of sight and moving, anything within a hundred feet of Nate's room. You see anything that doesn't sit right, you let me know."

Parker nodded and took off.

Suddenly Eliot found himself without anything to do. The physical threat was over. The wheels that could were spinning themselves.

And he was sitting, waiting.

Eliot really hated hospitals.

It was a half hour before Hardison had anything, but when he did it came in a rush. He found the girl who was supposedly Adrian. He followed a trace of a phone call through a reroute and lost it only to find another one forwarded the rest of the way.

"I've got her." Hardison said. "Ward c, room 13, at Touchstone Psychiatric hospital in Someville."

Eliot nodded, standing. "Take over here. I'll be back once I've gotten her to a safe place."

"But our last…"

"That was one of our safe houses." Eliot said. "Not a hitter's safe place. Trust me. Even if they found this place she's safer inside than most places in the city. Until then figure out how they found Selina."

He was gone before Hardison replied.

**oOo**

Elizabeth Ford was not at all pleased.

It had been close to three years since she'd seen her son. He'd broken contact with her along with everyone else after his marriage fell apart. It was only in the past year that he'd started with the very awkward holiday calls.

To be honest, she could do with a couple more years of those if it meant the reunion mother and son were due could happen somewhere else than in the hospital after Nate had been shot.

However, god worked in mysterious ways and she'd just thank him later for giving her a reason to be able to politely verbally tan her son's backside for the years and hours of worry after he was out of the ICU. He was living in Boston now and she would be sure to impart on him (and his rather polite girlfriend) the need for him to come and visit her a few times a month.

Just as soon as he was alright.

She took a deep breath as she parked her car in the visitors lot and climbed out. She was not an ancient woman, though the black of her hair had long ago surrendered itself over to gray. She had married young to a man who became a different person after she'd lost their first child. Even the birth of Nate, a blessing she'd barely dared hope for, hadn't fixed all that was wrong in their family.

In honesty things had never been truly fixed after Jimmy started drinking.

But that was a long time ago. Her son needed her now.

She signed in at the front desk and started walking up to the surgery ward, paying attention to people and things as she went. She had always hated hospitals, though for most of her life it had been mostly because how confusing they were and how easily lost you could get in one.

She was just wincing at the memory of why those left of her family hated hospitals when she caught sight of someone.

If she'd been a more superstitious woman she'd have called it a bad omen.

Her mind tracked back twenty one years, to a long ago time when her husband was newly dead, and she was looking desperately for some kind of explanation.

She'd gotten it in the form of a boy beaten to death by his stepfather.

Elizabeth turned sharply, her eyes following the bad omen as he passed her in the hallway.

The same stormy blue eyes, guarded against pain. The same determined face. The same blonde hair and scared skin and…

"Mrs. Ford!" Someone called from behind her. Elizabeth turned and the woman she assumed was Katharine came running over to meet her. "Wish we could of met under better circumstances. I'm Katherine. Please, come with me. I'll show you where we're waiting."

**oOo**

Parker was sick of waiting. She was a sick of not being able to do anything but sit around and hope things turned out alright.

Eliot was gone. He'd left twenty minutes ago, right before Mrs. Nate's Mom got here, to go retrieve Adrian and get her to safety. He'd called her back from surveillance then and now she had nothing to do but wait.

Mrs. Nate's Mom was looking between all of them. They'd told her the party line, that they were Nate's business associates when he'd been working in consulting in L.A. and that when things went under because of the economy Nate had relocated to Boston and they'd eventually followed suit.

There had been some difficult things to explain but all in all she seemed to have bought it.

Mrs. Nate's Mom broke the silence. "You all do realize that I know what you've all been doing, right?"

Huh?

"What?" Sophie asked.

"Paul told me, Nate confirmed it and explained."

"Oh."

Oh… Parker echoed mentally. Well that made things easier.

"So does someone want to tell me what actually happened to my son?"

There were a couple beats before Parker nodded. "Job went south. Very, very far south."

Mrs. Nate's Mom nodded, turning her eyes back to the purse she'd been digging through since she'd sat down.

Parker believed that certain places had their own realities. That in them, time and space worked differently and things just all around sucked. Somehow, everything came together to make things not feel real.

When Mrs. Nate's Mom pulled out a bunch of pictures it didn't seem that odd to go over and look at them like she had when she was in that jury case. She found that she was looking at pictures more than thirty years old, of Nate as a kid.

"I had pictures of Sam here too." Mrs. Nate's Mom told her. "Maggie would send me some almost every month and they'd come to visit. After he died…" She trailed off with a sigh. "I still have them but after a time you have to let a child rest in peace. I started carrying these old things to remind myself."

"Remind yourself of what?" Parker asked, looking through the pictures.

"Happier times."

"But Nate's like fourteen in these pictures and he doesn't even look that happy in most of them." Parker remarked, ever tactful. "It's really been that long since you were happy?"

"I guess simpler times might be better." Mrs. Nate's Mom answered. "Though he never liked having his picture taken, that's why he looks so annoyed."

Parker looked at the old photos. A couple looked like a very young version of Nate's patented "Why do I put up with you all again?" expression.

She glanced sideways toward Mrs. Nate's Mom, who was looking misty eyed at the pictures of her young son.

"He looks very happy in this one." Sophie remarked, pulling out a picture of Nate, probably no older than thirteen or fourteen, petting a golden retriever while sitting on the front stoop of a row house. Parker paused, trying to remember how she knew the breed.

"Oh that's Kate. It was my husband's dog, though I swear Nate loved her almost as much as he did."

"Kate?" Parker asked, then suddenly remembering. "AHAH! I knew it!" She turned, ready to point an accusatory finger at…

Eliot wasn't there.

Darn it.

"Parker?" Hardison asked slowly, clearly unsure what brought on this new brand of crazy.

"Eliot keeps insisting I'm crazy but now I've got proof he's weird than me. I don't steal from the rest of you."

Sophie blinked. Hardison moved his mouth and tried to put some words together. Mrs. Nate's Mom looked suitably confused.

"Eliot has a picture of that dog. He stole it from Nate!"

"Parker I… huh?" Hardison's replied cleverly.

"Okay hold on." Sophie said after a moment. "Are you sure it's this picture?"

Parker nodded. "Yes. I see it every time I get hungry and sneak into his place to make him cook me something. It's the exact same dog, maybe a little less ancient but I'm sure it is." They all stared at her and she rolled her eyes. She could explain to them exactly how good she was at playing spot the differences but that was besides the point. "He even said her name was Kate and that she was his father's dog."

"Parker…" Sophie started but wasn't really sure where she was going with this.

The silence that followed was broken by a wallet full of pictures hitting the floor.

Three sets of eyes turned back to the woman now holding a single small photo of a teenaged Nate and a little blonde boy with an overgrown golden retriever puppy sitting between them.

Both the boys were laughing, looking at the camera with eyes the same color of blue.

**oOo**

It was not the cleanest job they'd ever done, but time was of the essence and Eliot knew how to work fast when necessary. There were plenty of people in his line who considered themselves artist,s above a rush job. Hell at some points in his life he could have waxed a little poetic about martial *arts*, but at the end of the day this was the way of his world.

He got in, got what he was getting, got out.

He retrieved.

Even if normally he wouldn't retrieve people this was something he could justify doing.

He had the credentials to get in without questions asked. The new shirt he'd changed into after cleaning up nicely covered the graze and lent to his professional appearance.

The key to a lot of cons was confidence. If you looked like you were doing something important that you should be doing not many people would stop you to ask.

It also helped if you had intimidating glares down to an art form.

Eliot reached ward C right as a fire alarm started going off. In seconds orderlies and doctors and patients were pouring into the halls. Chaos was abounding and it was a perfect chance to get Adrian and get away. He could hardly have planed better.

Except this wasn't their plan.

Eliot sprinted down the hall, turning the corner in time to see two guys in scrubs and army boots (and seriously, when were hit men going to learn not to do that?) heading toward room thirteen.

The first one was down before they'd registered any change in this end of the hallway. There were few rooms around this corner. Room 13 was the last in the ward and isolated enough.

Enough for a planned hit right from the get go.

The second guy recovered quickly, slashing out at Eliot with a knife even as he turned to face him.

Eliot dodge to the left, grabbing the hand wielding the knife and twisting until he heard a satisfactory crack.

A blow to the head and #2 was out like a light next to his partner.

Eliot grabbed the ID card number one had dropped and slid it through the scanner, unlocking the door and letting himself inside.

The room was small, sterile, and dark. Off white walls seemed vaster with only the reflection of a small bedside lamp illuminating them.

Somehow the figure on the bed seemed dwarfed by the little room.

He took a few steps into the room. "Adrian Merrins?" He asked, loud enough to be heard over the fire alarm.

Hands tightened around a word find book she'd braced against her knees and seemed to press herself further into the corner her bed sat in. She took a slow breath and looked up through a screen of tangled blonde hair. Across the room she met his eyes, biting her lip but terror only showing enough for someone with practice to see. "Are you here to kill me?"

"No." Eliot walked across the room. They needed to get out of here soon but he needed her to trust him enough to follow him. He held out a hand to help her up. "I'm here ta rescue you."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes: **Happy Thanksgiving!  
As usual this wonderful betaed fic is brought to you by she who should be praised ASL_Wonderland.

* * *

**The Legacy Job  
**_Chapter Four_

* * *

Hardison was aware there were times and places where life strayed into the Twilight Zone, and you were better off running very fast and very far in any other direction than the one in which you had been heading.

Hardison had thought they'd already hit that point when the woman that Eliot was protecting had died. That in of itself was warning enough. He should have run then.

But Nate was in the hospital now, maybe even dying, though Hardison cursed himself for even thinking that thought.

And life had proceeded toward a even bigger Twilight Zone.

He should have run away while he had a chance.

Instead, he was the one to ask Mrs. Ford "Who is that?" while pointing at the blonde boy in the picture with Nate.

"You said your friend's father had a dog named Kate." Mrs. Ford said, ignoring the question, her attention snapping back toward Parker who nodded in reply. Mrs. Ford's eyes dropped back down to the picture she held, shaking her head. "No… not possible. He… he died when he was fifteen."

Hardison's mind spun, informing him just who had eyes that color, who had a grin like that, who had first appeared, as far as Hardison could find, at the age of fifteen.

"Who died?" Sophie asked softly, her voice easing toward 'dealing with a client' gentle. "The boy in that photo?"

Mrs. Ford nodded slowly, shocked and still processing. "His name was Spencer Wheeler." She blinked the moisture from her eyes quickly. "Was… His mama had remarried so he died Spencer Lawrence." She put the picture in her lap. "He was Nate's half brother." There was a silence after that. No one was quite sure what to say to the wife scorned sitting before them.

"Nate never told us he had a brother." Parker commented after a long moment.

"They hadn't seen each other in eight years when Spencer died. Sometimes I don't think Nate even really remembers."

Sophie gently lifted the picture, studying it. "Where is this?"

"Lawrence, Kentucky." Mrs. Ford supplied. "Spencer's stepfather was a member of the family that ran the town. If it weren't for the Martins, he probably would have gotten away with what he did."

"What did he d-" The question Hardison wasn't really sure he wanted answer to had almost left his mouth when recognition struck hard.

_Martins. _

His mind ran back to a job in Kentucky. To Eliot's high school sweetheart. To the man Eliot had had more personal interest in helping than Hardison had seen before, or since.

_Willy Martin._

"Martins?" Hardison asked, voice hollow.

Mrs. Ford nodded, her eyes sad, taking back the picture. "The Lawrence who married Spencer's mother was an abusive bastard; when Spencer was fifteen things got out of hand. Lawrence beat him and his mama to death, left their bodies in the woods. It was William Martin, his wife, and his daughter who led the town in making sure the Lawrence family didn't smooth it over and get him out of trouble."

Hardison's voice sounded hollow in his ears as he asked. "Do you remember the daughter's name?"

Mrs. Ford sighed. "I shouldn't but the poor girl was so angry I remembered it. She" Mrs. Ford tapped her fingers to her lips in thought for a moment before answering. "Aimee. That was it, poor girl. She and Spencer had been sweet-hearts. He even gave her a promise ring."

It was simple. There were too many line ups, too many coincidences to not be. Of all the bizarre…

They really had stumbled into a Twilight Zone.

Sophie rubbed her face. "This isn't possible. The world's best Hitter and an ex insurance agent turned Mastermind who are randomly thrown together, and end up forming a team, just happen to be half brothers? And no one would know it if it weren't for a picture of a dog? That's… that's just not possible."

Hardison was beginning to wonder if someone was running an elaborate con on them. Then again, they were all a mite paranoid.

"Oh come on." Parker said. "Weirder stuff's happened to us." When the Team all gave her disbelieving looks Parker shrugged and explained. "Yeah, the world's best Hitter, the worlds best Thief, and one of the world's best Hackers are all at the exact same place in their lives and need money just enough that they'll accept a job that makes them all break their own personal rules about always working alone. An ex insurance agent who just happened to have chased them all and is kinda liked by all of them in a weird way, just happens to need money enough to take the job. They're all betrayed and a bomb blows up just soon enough, so that they wind up in the hospital - but mostly unhurt and have to work together one more time. That just happens to give the Mastermind enough time to convince them all to work together to get revenge and the money. The Grifter they want, just happens to be all too willing to come back into the game, and things just happen to go SO well, and they all make SO much money they decide to keep going? Yeah, like that's EVER going to happen."

Hardison blinks, considered it for half a moment and then shrugged at Sophie. "Girl has a point."

Mrs. Ford looked between them. "What are you saying?"

Sophie sat down next to Mrs. Ford and laid a gentle hand over hers. "Our friend Eliot Spencer, a member of our team, is about ten years younger than Nate. He's dark blonde with blues eyes, and looks a bit like the boy in the photograph. He has a photo of that dog." She took a breath and finished. "And though he hasn't said much about his past, one of the jobs we worked together was to help a man and his daughter who he'd known in high school. Their names were Willy and Aimee Martin. We can't be sure, but I think he may be Spencer Lawrence. We think Eliot is Nate's half-brother."

**oOo**

Escaping the ward after retrieving Adrian was almost shamefully easy. Though, in retrospect, Eliot had to admit that after one has escaped a couple Russian dungeons, anything without AK-47 totting armed guards and some well trained attack dogs started to seem almost too easy.

They slipped out the back, Adrian following behind him like a shadow. After reaching the van, Eliot opened the front passenger door for her before climbing in on the other side. He habitually checked to see if she'd put on her seat belt (El and Parker both seemed to have issues with doing that) before driving off.

As retrievals went Eliot had to admit he wouldn't mind it if a few more were this easy.

The drive was silent. Adrian was staring out the window at the world flying past, a sort of blank expression on her face every time Eliot glanced over to check. After he was sure they weren't being followed Eliot got a chance to consider the situation. Adrian was supposedly low risk, the suicide attempt had been courtesy of the Zo-Tien and she should be fine now. Though they had been forcing her to take it while in confinement, which was troubling, it had taken her two months to get suicidal wile on the drug. She hadn't even been in the ward for much more than a month.

He glanced toward Adrian again. She was still staring into space, hugging herself tightly. Dressed in the white pants and tee-shirt of the ward, she was shivering a little and it occurred to Eliot she might be cold. It was late fall after all. He turned up the heat before forcing his eyes back onto the road.

He was keeping their client alive. Something he'd failed rather spectacularly to do earlier. He wasn't caring, he'd been reminded of his mistake about _that _earlier.

Okay, if he was honest with himself he felt a little guilty about Selina. He was used to seeing people die. Hell, he was used to doing the killing, but Selina was a civilian and a mother and it was the first time they'd lost a client like this.

Maybe guilt over getting her mother killed was mixing with his tendency to be a tad on the protective side with kids and maybe Joey had something to do with all this.

Eliot needed to get Adrian to a safe house and get on with the job. He needed to back away from the situation and sort himself out and get his focus back. He needed to focus, otherwise Nate and Selina probably wouldn't be the only ones to end up in the hospital.

Or the morgue.

He let out a long calming breath, driving in silence, trying to slip into the right headspace. It was hard, with a team that was sneaking closer and closer to being family every day. But when they were on a job he tried to slip back into the proper mind-set. He had to be on guard, he had to watch for danger and be ready to ma-

"What's your name?" Adrian's question broke through Eliot's reverie. He glanced over at her briefly before turning his eyes back to the road.

"What's your name?" She asked again.

"Eliot Spencer." He said simply. "I work with a team that's working to expose Zocrolft. Selina found us and told us about you." He explained further, predicting the next set of questions. "I'm taking you to a safe house."

"Is Selina going to be there?" She asked, her carefully blank expression giving way to a bright smile. Eliot could hear the hope on her voice and winced internally.

He could lie to her. He could tell her that Selina was at another safe house. He could tell her a lot of things to make this a simple transition for a while longer and then get Sophie to break the bad news. She was good at that. She knew how to do that.

But this wasn't just a case of "Get the money for Adrian and walk off into the Sunset". Adrian's foster mother was dead, and there was no telling who in the foster system was involved, and after everything was over, chances were they wouldn't be able to just drop Adrian off at the doors to Child Protective Services. When this was over they'd have to figure out what to do with her.

They'd find her a good home. If the team as a whole didn't Eliot was pretty sure he could convince Parker and Hardison to help him find her a good home. They owed it to her for getting Selina killed.

But if anything they did for her was going to work they needed her to trust them enough to let them do it.

And if Eliot lied to her about Selina now Adrian would probably never really trust them again after she found out.

Eliot checked the rearview mirror one more time and pulled over, stopping the car at the side of the road and taking a deep breath. Sophie would know how to do this right. But he wasn't Sophie and really…

He turned to Adrian who looked like she'd already guessed that something wasn't right and made up his mind. Sophie would be able to do it right, he'd just do it and hope for the best.

"Selina is dead." He said, as gently as he could. "We were ambushed when we were moving her to a safe house. She was shot, I couldn't save her. I'm sorry."

"Dead?" Adrian asked, her voice sounding hollow and brittle. "She's… dead?" She took a sharp breath and Eliot braced himself for a freak out. For Adrian to flip and break down and rage, or whatever a fifteen year old who just lost her mother normally would do.

He wasn't prepared for her to crumple around herself, pull her knees up to her chest and turn to look out the window.

"Adrian?" He asked, softly, not sure what the question was.

She didn't say anything for a long moment before she let out a shaky breath. "I'm okay. Sometimes things just go wrong. Take me to the safe house so you can get back to your team and take down Zocrolft. I'll take care of myself." He hesitated and she turned to him, blue eyes wild with something that he almost recognized, her voice a strangely familiar in it's deadpan when she said. "Sometimes things go wrong. All you can do is accept it and move on. I'll be okay."

With a hesitant nod Eliot started to drive again.

**oOo**

There is only so much time you can spend in the Twilight Zone before life drags you back out. Hardison was grateful of this fact. It meant that after twenty minutes of confirming that a DNA test would be about the only way to disprove the most recent bizarre development, things started getting a little closer to what passed as normal for them.

Sophie left the room to find some Doctor to con into giving her an update on Nate. Mrs. Ford pulled her knitting out of her bag and proceeded to try to teach Parker the skill. Hardison was tempted to warm Mrs. Ford about the dangers of Parker and sharp objects but Parker seemed to be too confused to make any efforts to stab someone.

Then again, maybe she was just confused enough to stab someone.

Hardison had gone back to trying to sort out the mess from earlier that day. How had the hit men found Selina? The safe house should have been safe.

An hour had quietly ticked away before Hardison finished putting the pieces together and made sure that his theory was what had actually happened. He did not want another error like this driving this job, or any other, further south.

Giving a nod to Sophie who'd returned and was keeping a wary eye on both Parker and the door, Hardison stepped out. He found a stairwell where he could have a bit of privacy and called Eliot. "Eliot, what's going on?"

"I"ve got Adrian." Eliot answered. "I'm almost to the safe house. You figure out what happened yet?"

Hardison paused in trepidation. He had figured out what had gone wrong. Adrian's laptop, the one the goons took of Selina's body, was one of a used set donated to CPS by a business. Like all the others in the set, it had a program installed that sent out a GPS indicator whenever it was in range of a wireless signal. It had been installed as theft prevention by a paranoid company, but if the wrong people got their hands on the code…

If the laptop had been turned off, things would have been alright. The program didn't work while the computer was shut down, and once inside the safe house, Hardison's programs and blocks would have prevented any signal from being sent out.

But the computer had been on when they moved Selina. Hardison suspected Eliot had seen the black screen, felt that the computer was cold, and assumed it was turned off rather than in standby. Eliot knew enough about technology to get by. He knew to turn off cell phones and anything that transmitted a signal before going to ground. He was learning but…

Technology was still Eliot's kryptonite.

Though if Hardison was honest with himself, he'd admit he only guessed at the scenario of what happened as easily as he did because he'd done it often enough himself. It was a dumb mistake, but were there any other kind?

"There was a tracking program on Adrian's computer, led them right to her." Hardison said, all of this passing through his head in a second as he considered his words. "It normally wouldn't have worked, but they probably crossed the HD power supply with an H2 converter to make sure the motherboard had the necessary power to make sure." His words were mostly made up of techno babble, but they had the desired effect. Eliot didn't ask any more questions and Hardison didn't have to tell him Eliot-Kryptonite and a dumb mistake had gotten Selina killed.

Later, Hardison would figure out some way to make sure Eliot knew to always check and make sure a computer was powered all the way down, but this was something they were going to blame on the unavoidable, on getting blindsided. Hardison still felt a little sick that Selina was dead, and sicker that they could have stopped it if only…

But Selina was already dead and as much as Hardison wanted to freak out about the actual, non-video-game death, he knew there wasn't much they could do about Selina now. They needed to focus on Adrian and the ten different ways life had gone crazy in the past twenty-four hours.

And Eliot didn't need to have a dead client on his conscience. Hardison knew he had killed for a living but he also knew Eliot didn't take death lightly. And a death like Selina's?

What Eliot didn't know wouldn't distract him.

"Hardison!" Eliot growled after a moment more of technobabble. "Is it safe or not?"

"It's safe, man." Hardison said quickly. "Safe and sound."

"Alright. I'll get Adrian settled and head back to the hospital." There was a moment's pause before the gruff voice continued. "How are things? Any news?"

Hardison thought of the revelation of the dog, of Sophie harassing and grifting anyone she could to try to get news, of the growing monstrosity that was Parker's attempt to knit.

Of still not a word on Nate.

"Nothing." Hardison said a moment before adding. "Hurry back."'

**oOo**

It was almost two hours later before Eliot was parking in the hospital lot, half wondering why it was so empty before he realized it had to be close to midnight, if not later. It had taken time to get into the safe house, show Adrian around and make sure she knew how to get into the underground panic room, and how to seal it properly. He'd also had to go through a conversation he absently wondered would have been any less awkward if it was the girls he was explaining it to.

Which is to say, he showed Adrian the closet he'd stocked with clothes and necessities for Sophie and Parker. This safehouse was his, but he'd gone the extra few steps to make sure that should things go south for the team, they could all retreat there and lay low, not needing to leave for a week or more if they had to. There hadn't been anything there to actually fit Adrian, but once he'd told her none of it had actually been worn, she assured him she could make due.

With a final explanation of the kitchen, and once more emphasizing on her not leaving for anything, he told her someone would check in on her the next morning and he left. He took the long drive back to the hospital as a chance to clear his head and try to get back to focusing on the case.

The immediate emergencies had been resolved. Nate was still in critical condition and their mark probably knew Nate and Eliot's faces by now, which meant the con would be a bit more limited.

But they could still do this.

Even if Eliot would never admit it, he found himself walking into the waiting room the others were camped out in much sooner than he might have liked.

He hadn't been ready for a woman he guessed to be Nate's mother to look over at him and go pale like she'd seen a ghost.

And he really hadn't expected the next words to leave her mouth be "Spencer Wheeler?" He looked at her, confusion crossing his face as he tried to come up with some way she would know the name he'd been born under. Spencer Wheeler had been dead even longer than Spencer Lawrence had. "Is your name Spencer Wheeler?"

Parker, Sophie, and Hardison were all staring at him with penetrating eyes and Eliot knew no matter what he said they'd find some way to figure out the truth.

"Not for twenty-eight years." Eliot said. "How'd you know that ma'am?"

Mrs. Ford didn't answer right away. She stood up and walked over to him, holding out an old faded photograph. Eliot took it and looked at it.

His six year old self hugging Kate, a teenage boy sat on the dog's other side. He blinked, hazy memories from a childhood before life went to hell, stirring. There were vague remembrances of his father and another; a teenage boy, the one in the picture. Even as the memory rose, rage and betrayal came back with it, buried deep and put away years ago.

He looked back down at the picture. The teenage boy he remembered was the boy in the photo. Eliot hadn't seen a picture of him since his mama married.

The teenager in the photo looked familiar. He actually looked a lot like Na-

Eliot looked up at Mrs. Ford.

_Oh._

"Of all the Crews, of all the countries of all the world, you just happen to work for him, right?" Hardison commented off to the side and Eliot wasn't sure whether to hit him or thank him. Somehow Hardison being a smart mouth made this all seem less like they'd all gone crazy.

Eliot looked back to Mrs. Ford. Nate's mother and the wife of the man Eliot's mother had had an affair with. "You're alive." she said, looking like she didn't know if she wanted to hit him or hug him.

Eliot wasn't sure what was going on, and he wasn't sure how the fuck he should react to finding out his boss was his older half brother, or that his half brother's mother was apparently _happy _he wasn't dead. He didn't know when life had gotten this much out of control. He was relatively certain that he really needed things to stop getting more out of control, so he could figure out some kind of next response other than to stare at her with a look somewhere between confused and shocked on his face. He preferred to save that expression for anytime he saw Sophie "act".

That was the moment the door opened and a doctor walked in. "Are you all with Nathan Ford?" He asked. They turned, Mrs. Ford and Sophie nodding quickly. "We've managed to remove the bullet and repair the damage. He's stable and we're moving him to the ICU for recovery at the moment, the nurses out at the desk will tell you where exactly. He likely won't awake for some time, but you can see him now."

He was barely done speaking before the team had gathered their things and left the waiting room.

Twenty minutes later they found themselves sitting in different uncomfortable hospital chairs in Nate's room, the steady beep of his heart monitor comforting.

It only took a few minutes for Parker to start looking antsy. A few minutes later Sophie stood and stretched, quietly suggesting that she, Parker, and Hardison go see if the Cafeteria was still open or find some vending machines if it wasn't.

It wasn't the most subtle Sophie had ever been, but Eliot appreciated the break from the awkward quiet and the stares as everyone tried to think of something to say without success.

Even if it meant he'd have to talk to Nate's mother about the fact he wasn't dead, and that Mr. Ford had killed himself in part because he thought Eliot was.

"What happened to you?" Mrs. Ford asked a few minutes after the others left, breaking the silence but never looking away from Nate.

Eliot thought back, it was twenty years gone and those early memories had never really lost their pain. He'd buried them and learned to live with them and separated them from the Joey he knew now but, he owed her… "I was fifteen." Eliot answered her with a shrug. "I'd tried, but I knew I wasn't gonna make another three years, and his family ran the town." Eliot made a bit of a face. "Truth is, it's the kind of case our team would take." The irony brought a bitter smile to his face. "I got social services ta take my sister, but it wouldn't be more than a few days before she got brought home again, so I provoked That Man. I had a plan, Willy was gonna help me end things, but things got outta control and after my sister got taken and didn't even acknowledge our mama before she left… well, when things turned bad my mama stepped in. By the time things were over, my mama was dead an' I wasn't far off myself. Willy hid me in his stables while I healed up, and Aimee bought me a bus ticket out of town. I left and started over." Eliot shook his head, looking around the room and mentally adding if losing yourself in the streets of L.A. and getting pulled into the Criminal World could be called starting over.

There was silence for a long time before Eliot put to voice the question that had haunted him for years after his first trip back to Lawrence to see Aimee. It had come with the news that his father had killed himself. "Why'd he do it?"

"A big brother has only one job." Mrs. Ford said softly, shaking her head. "Protect his younger siblings." She finally turned to look at Eliot. "Your father told you that didn't he?" Eliot nodded. It was really what he remembered best of his father. The words he'd tell Eliot every time he came for a visit. It was his job to protect Joey. He was her big brother and his one and only job was to protect her. It had been all Eliot had cared about for most of their childhood. "You know where that came from?" Eliot shook his head. "Nate's…" She paused and amended herself. "Your grandfather was an alcoholic. Like your father. Like Nate. Only, your grandfather was a mean drunk. He was dead by the time I married your father, but Jimmy had the scars to show for it. He also had a little brother who didn't. Jimmy protected your uncle. Kept him safe all the years they were growing up." She finally looked away from Nate and looked over to meet Eliot's eyes. "When he found out what Lawrence had done, that he'd left you to go through what he'd been through… It was the last push I guess."

Eliot looked back to Nate, not sure what to say next. It was weird, how in the space of an hour all this had come out and come back, how he was sure the team now knew a whole lot more about his past then he'd ever really be comfortable with, how much shit was going down…

And he didn't really feel anything but tired. His shoulder hurt where he'd been grazed, his knees ached where he'd hit them as he dived out of the way and to cover Nate, his head hurt for any number of reasons. He felt a vague sense of really not wanting to deal with this on top of everything else.

But mostly he felt tired.

"You know…" The halting, hesitant, words made Eliot look up again to see that Mrs. Ford was still looking at him. "I… Nate told me he was worried about you. That first year after Jimmy stopped taking Nate down to see you. He told me there was something wrong. That you told him you didn't like your new father. That he thought there might be something bad happening to you." She looked back to Nate. "I was the one who told him not to worry, that most kids just don't like new step parents. I was glad things were finally back to normal and Jimmy wasn't taking Nate to spend time with you anymore."

She didn't say she was sorry, which was just as well, because Eliot didn't even know how he'd respond to that. For better or worse, that was buried twenty years in the past and covered by scar tissue and the pain had stopped as long as the wounds were left alone. Time had moved on, and Eliot had tried to follow suit. All that was in those years had been filed away with the rest of the things in his life that he was better off doing his best not to remember.

They didn't say anything else and soon the others returned, passing out cups of bad hospital coffee and settling into chairs. Hardison went back to typing on his computer. Sophie joined Mrs. Ford in attempting to figure out what Parker had done to turn the ball of yarn she was knitting into the tangle mass it now was.

Eliot spent a few moments watching with a sense of horror as _Parker _attempted to _knit _and he discovered that Sophie not only knew how, but found the activity relaxing. He had just given up and was considering finding some other activity, or maybe doing a security sweep or something, when Sophie asked Parker what she'd been trying to make in the first place.

"Booties." Parker replied. "For Eliot's kids."

Eliot looked up, blinking at the mass. "What?"

"On TV they always show people knitting baby booties for babies. I was trying to make some for your kids."

"I…" Eliot started, trying to find some words but managing mostly with. "There's something wrong with you."

"That's not very nice." Mrs. Ford reprimanded, though Eliot could have almost sworn there was that look in her eye like Nate got when he was adding his dry commentary to the banter to keep it going.

Parker beamed and shook her head. "No it is nice, Mrs. Nate's Mom. 'there's something wrong with you' is Eliot for "I love you."

It was in that moment that Eliot was reminded why you shouldn't attempt to drink anything while Parker was speaking. He sputtered bad hospital coffee over himself as he tried to respond. "There is really something wrong with you."

"See!" Parker said.

Anything anyone else might have said was interrupted by a soft groan coming from the hospital bed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Note: **As always this lovely, edited, chapter was brought to you in part by She Who Should Be Praised, ASL_Wonderland.

* * *

**The Legacy Job  
**_Chapter 5_

* * *

_A splash of liquid hit his face as his drink jostled a split second before a little body knocked him to the ground. Nate wanted to yell at his little brother for making him spill his lemonade (made by Spencer's mom and as good as he remembered from last year) but as the little boy raised his arms in victory he couldn't make himself do it. They were out in the grass, it was a plastic cup, and only a little had splashed his face. No harm, no foul. _

_Though when the boy shouted "Tag!" and took off, all bets were off. _

_Nate was almost sixteen, Spencer was only barely five, and even going easy, catching the little ball of energy wasn't much of a challenge and a minute later he was lifting a kicking and laughing boy into the air before setting him down and taking off, the game continuing. _

_They were playing in the huge yard of Spencer's house right as the summer sun set. Spencer's mother was agreeing to let Spencer and Joey stay up late in honor of Nate's arrival, though Joey had curled up and fallen asleep in their father's lap over an hour ago. Time was passing but the sun didn't seem to be sinking lower as their game continued. _

_Back, forth, it, not it, chaser, chased. Time lost all meaning, they could run forever. It was just the two of them in a field of tall grass, bugs singing a chorus around them and mocking birds setting up an unusual symphony of sounds that melted into the background. They could run forever and Nate wanted to run forever. He didn't know how, with only last year's two week long visit and short phone calls every other week since, he'd come to care about this little boy so much. He didn't know how this had gone from doing the job his father kept telling him about, to genuinely loving his little brother, no matter who his mother was._

_All he knew was he'd run around playing tag until judgment day if it kept his brother this happy._

_Nate looked over his shoulder, adding just a hint of a burst of speed to draw out the chase a second more before letting Spencer catch him. He was surprised when a little, fast moving, body hit him hard before Nate intended the chase to end. _

_They both tumbled forward, Nate turning as they fell to try to catch them and keep them both from getting hurt. His efforts were mostly wasted by Spencer taking the fall in stride and rolling with the impact, his five year old body seeming to know instinctively how to take a fall. A moment later he was leaning over Nate, a huge grin on his face. _

"_When did you get so fast?" Nate asked, sitting up and trying to catch his breath._

"_Sometime 'round December." Spencer answered, his grin broadening further. "S'when Joey started walking. Hav'ta keep a step ahead, she gets inta mischief an' you know what Daddy says." He stood straighter and not for the first time Nate caught himself amazed at how much his little brother had grown in the year since they'd seen each other. He nearly missed Spencer's next words, though he knew them well enough. The same words their father repeated over and over to them both about Joey and to Nate about Spencer. _

"_A big brother has only one job: Protect his younger siblings." _

"_You doing your job Spencer?" Nate asked Spencer who nodded vigorously in response._

"_I do, an Mama to. I'm the man of the house when Daddy's not here." He stood a little taller and puffed out his chest and made such a comical little figure Nate had to hide his smile. _

"_Good job little man." Nate reached out, ruffling the boy's hair. Spencer slid away from the gesture making a face that quickly morphed into one of delight. Nate looked around, trying to figure out what had his brother so enchanted. A second later Spencer took off back into the tall grass and Nate had to stand up to keep track of the little boy as he chased down what appeared to be a blinking speck of light in the growing darkness._

A firefly.

_Nate smiled when he realized this and watched Spencer scurry around as more blinked into life. Minutes ticked by and then Spencer was running back to Nate, hands clasped together tightly. When he reached Nate he opened them, revealing half a dozen fireflies that slowly took off, their glow lighting up the space between the brothers. _

_Nate blinked across the space between them, not remembering why that smile in this flickering candlelight made his heart hurt like this. He was glad to see Eliot actually smile. Four days ago when Nate had first been thrown into this cell to find his young cell mate knocking on death's door with serious intent, he had feared the worst. Eliot had been more than just sick and injured, the look in his eyes that first night had been of someone ready, almost eager, to die. _

_Nate should be glad that in only a few days time he's been able to get Eliot to smile like this, like he meant it. _

_But something about it, about the flickering light, about night falling, even about the fact that the twenty-something-year old's pride at having mastered the basic's of chess made him look like a kid…_

_It reminded him of something he didn't want to remember._

_Nate turned around sharply, words of warning and the sound of the cell door slamming open. _What were fireflies doing in their cell?

_Nate turned back to ask Eliot only to find a deathly pale nine year old boy. His tee-shirt was bloody and right arm hanging at an odd angle, his face was bruised and eyes swollen, blood matting dark blonde hair. But even with all that, Nate knew who it was. "Remember what Daddy said." He said, smiling and causing a split lip to bleed again. _

_The voice that made his heart burn all the worse came from behind him and Nate turned, he knew this nightmare. He knew what he'd find._

_Sam stood behind him, battered and broken and bloody in his hospital gown. "It's alright Daddy. You couldn't even do a big brother's job. Why would anyone expect you to be able to do a father's?"_

_There was an ominous sound of stamping feet Nate's subconscious had held onto through the years. Something just barely heard over the phone the last time…_

_He turned sharply back to his little brother who was looking over his shoulder. "I… That Man's home." The words slipped out with a hint sending a chill down Nate's spine. "I… I have ta go. I love you brother. Joey, tell Nate you love him."_

_Joey's shy "I love you" echoed around the cell as Nate lunged forward, hand reaching out to grab the boy, pull him back, warn him. He had to do something. This was his last chance. If he didn't now he'd never hear from Spencer again. He'd never see either of them again._

_Cloth slipped through his fingers just like when they were kids and Spencer would slide out of his grasp. _

_He fell, knees hitting the ground hard, the noise echoing around him becoming the sound of fists hitting cloth and flesh and small noises of pain. He told him it was dream, he'd never actually heard Spencer take a beating. This was just his imagination, or memory of the sounds they all heard anytime Eliot fought with his com in._

"_NATE!" A scream. He shook his head, trying to block it out. "Nate!"_

_That wasn't Spencer… it was Eliot. "Nate, wake up. 'S alright. Wake up."_

"Damit Nate, it's just a dream. Wake up." Nate's eyes shot open, strong hands on his shoulders keeping him from shooting upright and out of the bed. "Nate, don't." Eliot's voice penetrated his sleep hazed mind as his eyes focused. "You were shot. Stay still man."

A hospital. He was in a hospital.

His head pounded. A move to shift sent white hot pain shooting from his side up his spine.

He, apparently, was a patient in a hospital..

He blinked again, seeing Sophie, Parker, and Hardison converging around the foot of his bed as Eliot slowly took his hands away from his shoulders. Eliot needn't have worried. As he woke up fully Nate realized he probably wouldn't be able to even sit upright all the way. He felt like he'd been shot, which from what little of the last moments he could remember, was probably what happened.

Later he'd consider the fact that this was the third time he'd been shot and that maybe it was a sign there was something wrong with the way he was living his life.

He let his head fall back again, closing his eyes against the glare of lights, and sighed.

"There you go." Eliot said. "Take it easy, we'll get a doctor in a minute."

"What happened?"

"We were ambushed." Eliot said simply. "Selina's dead, we got Adrian out and she's at my safe house so she'll be 'right. Officially you an' me were helpin' Selina track down an old friend when we were mugged. We're all under our local aliases."

Nate didn't respond right away, his mind working sluggishly to process the information. He gave a half nod after a moment longer.

"I'm going to get a doctor." Hardison said, standing up and going to the door.

"Thank you, Dear." Another voice added and Nate turned his head sharply, opening his eyes despite the way the action made his head spin. There was his mother.

Well then.

**oOo**

Not long after Nate woke up a doctor kindly asked the team to wait out in the hallway, allowing his mother to stay since she was family.

The quiet that followed that statement as the four of them stood out in the hallway lasted more than a few minutes. "Are you going to tell him?" Sophie finally asked, not looking at Eliot though he knew she was addressing him.

"Assuming his mom hasn't already, yeah. Not for a bit though, maybe. Don't need to give him a heart attack when he can't even sit up an' it's not like the news can't wait a few days. But yeah, I'll tell him."

Silence lasted for another few minutes before the door opened and the doctor and Mrs. Ford stepped out.

"He's resting now." The doctor said. "He'll wake up again for longer in a few hours."

"Nate said you all should head home and get some rest." Mrs. Ford said as the doctor left. "The job can wait for a bit."

They all nodded, after the day they'd had rest was something they'd all need a good deal of. Eliot knew he'd only been up for a bit more than twenty-four hours but he felt drained.

A wall clock said it was just past three in the morning. He could get home, get some sleep, and be out over to check on Adrian by what most people considered a reasonable hour.

There were a few nods but no one really said goodbye as they all went their own ways, little more than a combined decision to reconvene the next evening, if not sooner.

Judging from the exhaustion in the rest of the team, he wasn't the only one suddenly feeling exhaustion hit now that the danger had passed, and they'd been given the order to stand down for awhile.

Later he'd barely even remember the drive home, or sinking into his bed.

He would vaguely remember that the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was the picture of Kate sitting on a self on one of the book cases by his bedroom door.

It was only a little after eight a.m. when Eliot started the final stretch of road to his safe house. He knew he was still early, and they hadn't even gotten here until midnight the night before so he didn't feel in much of a rush. Adrian was probably still asleep, and although he wouldn't admit it, he didn't feel the need to add to the world of hurt she was going through, even if it was just as little as waking her up early when she'd managed to get some rest.

Plus, his shoulder hurt where he'd been grazed and Parker had stolen his aspirin again. He would have sworn she had a problem of the drug addiction kind, if not for 1) there had to be easier ways for her to get something that would get her a lot higher and 2) she'd told him once that she stole it because she figured he never really needed aspirin.

Apparently in Parker world Eliot either didn't feel pain at all, was too tough to take anything, or possibly took something a lot stronger than aspirin.

Yeah, and he totally wasn't pondering the mystery of Parker to avoid thinking about the fact fellow patrons of CVS were giving him weird looks for raiding the magazine rack for any word-find books they had.

Or that he was a little more invested in making this client happy than was usually reasonable.

She reminded him of Joey at that age, he insisted to himself as he paid for the books and aspirin. Even if she was a couple years older. She had the same uneven and sharp edges - like flint, and brittle as it too: the same self contained air and the loose sense that you're never quite sure if she'll strike back or fall to pieces.

She reminded him of Joey, and with Joey pregnant again and on his mind, and with all that Nate stuff and the insane twists life just took, it's understandable that he'd be thinking about Joey when she was a kid. Now Adrian's reminding him of Joey too, and Eliot's always had this weird instinct to protect young girls anyway (which he also blames on them reminding him of his sister in general). So yeah.

He isn't becoming emotionally involved, he's just reacting to instincts that became skewed during his royally f'ed up childhood. It still isn't the best course of action but he's going to draw the line here and not let it go any further. This job had already gone south six different ways. He did not need to get involved personally, it would only cloud his judgment and with Nate in the hospital, they couldn't afford that now - as if they ever could.

Later, he'd kick himself for being so preoccupied with giving himself a mental dressing down for the possibility of getting involved (and seriously, he'd known he was Nate's brother for like four hours and he's already picking up the man's habits?) that he didn't notice right away that there was something wrong at the safe house.

Oh sure, there was no physical danger, at least not the guys with guns kind. He'd been through a lot more preoccupation and detected that, but there was something just a little off. Hardison had once joked that Eliot had a spider sense and if he did it would be…

He'd barely let himself into the small house and was still tapping the security code into the keypad when he saw it out of the corner of his eye. A newspaper, or a torn bit of one, laying in the entryway from the front hall to the small living room, the television he'd added (since he really didn't want to be stuck in a house with Hardison bitching about missing Dr. Moo) was turned on, the early morning reruns playing on low.

"…six of us kids in a room and come flu season that went down to four..." Eliot identified one of the angsty teen dramas as he walked into the room.

Trashed wasn't the right word to describe it. Trashed implied broken furniture and a decent amount of property damaged. Trashed was something Eliot had done enough times to know that, although there was bits of torn up newspapers and probably the majority of the small house's books scattered around the living room, it wasn't the work of a single act of violence. He could read the epicenter of the chaos, in front of the coffee table in front of the TV and the rather distinctive way the mess spread outwards.

Restlessness, an inability to relax taken to a sensation almost like an itch in your chest, a need for distraction but an inability to concentrate.

It took Eliot a beat to recognize he knew those symptoms from Nate when back in L.A. when he hadn't had a drink in too long.

It took another beat for him to consider how very glad he was that he had made the choice not to keep any alcohol on hand.

Then his mind caught up with the fact this wasn't Nate, it was a emotionally unstable fifteen year old girl who'd just lost her mother figure and gotten out of a psychiatric ward and how distracted by Nate, and just shit in general, had they been to not realize that that might be a big issue? How hadn't… she had said, but really. Didn't he know first hand that kids in bad situations learned to always insist that they were fine? Didn't they, hadn't he, gotten that fucking good at lying about it?

"You're panicking right now; you can't believe how bad you let things get. That's not change…" The words from the television chased him as he dropped the bags and retreated back to the hallway and all but ran up the stairs.

"Adrian!" He called, looking for, hell he didn't know what. This was a safe house, it was HIS safe house, it was defended from external threats, not internal. He had weapons hidden everywhere and even if she didn't find one, it wasn't like she'd have a hard time improvising if she wanted to.

Having a row house for a safe house built on four stories with three bedrooms and three bathrooms had seemed like a good idea at the time, especially built as for a fallback shelter for the team…

But it took far longer than he'd like to reach the "girls" room he'd set up for Sophie and Parker, where he'd helped Adrian settle in. The chaos had re-occurred in the room, the rest of the house's books scattered about with bits of paper.

But what, or in this case who, he was looking for was lying, alive, on one of the beds shoved into the far corner wrapped up in both the room's quilts and what looked like one of the quilts from the other bedroom.

His fading adrenalin ratcheted up again when he saw the bottle of sleeping pills from his "Job Gone South" medical supplies on the nightstand.

He was halfway across the room when Adrian shifted in the blankets, a sound something like a yawn escaping her as she blearily opened her eyes. There was a moment of confusion before she seemed to recognize him.

Eliot picked up the bottle, nerves calmed somewhat by the rattle that indicated it was still nearly full. "How many did you take?" He asked, voice gentler than he meant, as she didn't seem to have meant damage to herself.

"One. Just wanted to sleep." She answered shutting her eyes again. "Didn't want to dream. Kept seeing Selina."

Eliot wasn't sure if the fact she had only taken half of what was clearly marked as a full dose on the label was a good sign or a bad sign, but right now he'd just be glad that a repeat of the amateur hour that had gotten Selina killed hadn't hurt Adrian as well.

"Know it's kinda creepy, comin' into a girl's room when she's tryin' to sleep." Adrian more mumbled than said, blinking her watering eyes and trying to hide a yawn as she moved to sit up.

"Go back ta sleep." Eliot said. "I'll be downstairs when you wake up. Come down when you're up for the day."

She blinked at him, hand emerging from the blankets to cover a yawn and rub at her eyes, and god damn she looked far too fucking much like Joey right then. "Not 'til you leave." She said.

"Right. Creepy." Eliot said, half wondering how the hell him, half afraid she'd tried to kill herself, had turned into a half-asleep girl making him feel like a pervert for coming into a bedroom, that may or may not have had her bleeding out on the floor.

He let himself out and went downstairs, stepping over the mess to get to the kitchen that, thank god, had been left untouched. He briefly considered cleaning up but dismissed the thought before it fully formed. He wasn't her maid and if she could form a coherent enough thought to snark at him for being somewhat concerned for her state of life, then she could damn well clean up her own mess.

With an annoyed shake of his head Eliot looked around the kitchen, gathering ingredients for breakfast. Yes, he'd already eaten his own but, with the past few days he'd had, a little more time in the kitchen, a little more cooking to relax him, was probably going to be the only way he figured he'd get through the rest of this day without punching someone.

Noon found Eliot sitting with a mug of tea and his laptop in the kitchen. He was making a second attempt at Monday's aborted research, effectively working to deal with one of this week's challenges (even if it meant ignoring the other ones for a moment).

A fresh batch of pancakes were cooling in the fridge with some bacon and a small garbage bin had been moved to the epicenter of the chaos in the living room. With nothing he could do for the Job until they met up again that evening, and nothing else he could do to deal with Adrian until she got up, he didn't have any reason not to take a step back from life's temporary insanity.

It was only a little after noon that a soft tread of footsteps on the stairs followed by shuffling in the living room let him know Adrian was coming down. After picking her way through the mess in the living room she appeared in the doorway and hesitated.

Eliot glanced up and forced himself to look back down to what he'd been doing. Adrian had a dark blue quilt wrapped around her shoulders and was dressed in Parker's clothes that were just a little too big for her. She looked younger than fifteen.

She looked like Joey.

Keeping his voice even as he spoke was harder than he'd willingly admit. "Breakfast's in the fridge. You can clean the mess up after you eat."

She didn't move and he looked up again. She was watching him with apprehension, something a lot like that look of fear she'd had when she asked him if he was there to kill her. "Why are you helping me?" She asked, her voice probably a little softer than she'd meant.

"Like I said, Selina found my team. We were helping her rescue you and get back at Zocrolft. The leader of my team was shot" _When Selina was killed_, he added mentally. "So the second bit's a bit on hold."

"But why are you helping?" Adrian asked again. "People don't just… they don't just help you because they can." Her voice faltered and eyes dropped to the floor. "They say they do, but they don't. Not really. There's always some catch twenty two, or… or something they want from you." She pulled the quilt a little tighter around her body and Eliot felt a little bit of *something* when he realized she wasn't shivering just from being cold. "…So what do you want from me?"

Eliot didn't answer right away. She was a kid. A little kid who wasn't just going to take that they'd been rescued and trust the rescuer, so he wasn't about to try and charm her,

If he thought about it, he should have seen this coming. She was a foster kid. If Hardison and Parker were any indication, the program did not breed a overabundance of trust. More than that, he knew her story. The last time someone had stepped up to help out of the apparent goodness of their hearts… well that was the reason the team was on this case in the first place.

Now, she's in an isolated place with a man she doesn't know and probably just about every horror story from foster care situations gone horribly awry running through her mind.

She wasn't going to trust that he just wanted to help her. He had to give her a reason he gave a damn about her being alright, other than being "a good person".

He took a sip of tea and their standoff continued another beat before he decided the truth, or close to it, was probably the best way to go.

He put down the mug and sighed. "We're thieves and con men, but our leader used ta be one of the good guys, so he has us go after marks like Zocrolft. We've been going at this on an' off for almost two years. Yeah, we're in it for the money, and the adrenalin rush, and some of us are too damaged to be anything else. But this is what we do, darlin'."

Adrian took a tentative step into the room. "What about you? What do you do? Why are you here?"

Eliot rubbed at his face. He was the only one she'd dealt with. Of course she'd ask that. But… god he needed to get Sophie to deal with this.

Except, he was pretty sure he didn't want Sophie to have anything to do with a teenage girl. He'd been surprised she'd been able to deal with Whitmark so well, but just his knowledge of Sophie combined with what teenage girls were like, told him it was probably a pairing to avoid.

"I'm the team's Hitter." He answered. "I protect my team, our clients too. 'Was the one who was supposed to be protecting Selina when she got shot." Adrian's look focused a little more closely on him. "'Was an ambush, Zocrolft was after her, they blindsided us. There wasn't anythin' I could do."

Silence followed and he pushed his chair back and stood, going to the sink to rinse out his mug. After shutting off the water. "Why am I here an' what do I want?" He said, restating her questions. "I'm here 'cause I was supposed to keep your mom safe an' I couldn't. Least I can do is make sure you're alright until the jobs over, and we find you a new home. As for what I want? There's the fridge, eat somthin'. After that you can clean up the mess you made in the living room, an' after that." He pulled the stack of word find books out of the bag he'd left on the counter, turning back to meet Adrian's eyes. "Selina said you liked these. Think they'll keep you occupied enough while I go to a meeting with my team, that you won't re-trash any rooms before I get back?"

Adrian didn't respond right away, standing a room away from him, her expression unreadable. Finally, she let out a long breath and crossed the kitchen, a hand emerging from the folds of the quilt to take the books and pull them close to her body. Her eyes flicked up to meet his for just a moment before they flicked back down to the floor and she muttered something that might have been "Thank you" before turning and walking over to the refrigerator.

It wasn't much.

But it was a start.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes: **As usual this story was brought to you in part by she who should be praised, my beta ASL_Wonderland  
Also finalized the storyboards for the last few chapters of Black King White Knight and the first few chapters of Two Knight's Closing. So watch for things to come  
Also, FF? Seriously? Seriously. Can you please stop messing up the formatting of my fics. It's not helpful.

* * *

**The Legacy Job  
**_Chapter Six_

* * *

If it was anyone else, Sophie wouldn't have been worried.

After all it was only five minutes past five o'clock. They had agreed to meet *around* five o'clock. Parker and Hardison probably wouldn't even be here for another ten minutes at least.

But this was Eliot. Sophie could only ever remember him being late for anything once, back on the horse job (and had he even been late then?). Eliot was only ever "on time" for something when there was a very good reason he had to be there at that exact moment. If there wasn't, you could be sure he'd be there at least fifteen minutes early.

Sophie knew that early on Parker and Hardison had at least one conversation about trying to guess his reasons without reaching much of a conclusion (well, ignoring Parker's theory that he was fifteen minutes out of sync with time and was waiting to scare it into submission, which Sophie was relatively certain had been an attempt at a joke). Sophie personally figured it was just him being the kind of person who doesn't like to be late.

Which begged to wonder why it was twenty minutes past when Eliot should have been there and he hadn't even called.

Had the Irish mob united the local gangs in an attempt on Eliot's life? Sophie half wondered if she'd see the resulting carnage on the news before or after Eliot arrived to tell everyone what happened.

She smiled at the thought and turned back, watching what seemed to be another somewhat awkward conversation between Nate and his mother without really tuning in. From what she'd gathered Mrs. Ford had told Nate about Eliot earlier that afternoon and apparently the memories it had dredged up had not been entirely pleasant.

Of course, considering he just found out one of his co-workers was his younger half brother who he'd previously thought had been beaten to death (which, Sophie is guessing, wasn't that far from what actually happened) he had pretty good reason to not know what to think.

Hell, Sophie wasn't even a part of the revelation and she wasn't sure what to think.

She looked away from the pair when she heard the hospital room's door open.

She wasn't sure who she had been expecting (Parker, Hardison, or a battered but victorious Eliot) but it wasn't who walked though the door.

It was a girl. Blonde, short and thin and made to look even smaller by the oversized hoodie she was wearing, but probably about fifteen years old. It took half a second for Sophie to translate the two pictures she'd seen to match the down turned face half hidden by bangs.

"Go on in" Eliot said, coming in a step after Adrian and closing the door behind them. He came close to the foot of Nate's bed, Adrian sticking close to his side. "Adrian, this is Sophie , my team's leader Nathan Ford, and his mother Mrs. Ford. Nate, Sophie, Mrs. Ford, this is Adrian."

As introductions were made Adrian looked up, a friendly smile forming on her face. She let go of whatever she was clutching to her chest with one arm to wave awkwardly. "Hi." She returned the arm back around the books she was holding and her eyes seemed to flick between the others in the room.

"Alright." Eliot said and Adrian turned to look at him. "'Some chairs over there, just… make yourself comfortable. We'll be here for a while."

She nodded jerkily and turned to take a seat in the far corner of the room and unwrapping her arms. It looked like a word find book, something confirmed when Adrian opened it to a fresh page and took out a pen from her pocket.

Sophie turned back to Eliot, raising an eyebrow (not the only one in the room it seemed).

"Was there a problem at your safe house?"Nate asked, still looking over at Adrian.

"Not a security issue" Eliot said, hesitating half a moment apparently trying to figure out a good way of saying what he had to say.

"More a worried your client's going to kill herself issue." Adrian said not looking up from her book, though she did seem to curl in on herself tighter. "'M not. I'm not gonna kill myself. I'm not crazy." She made a sound that was almost a laugh. "Not that crazy anyway."

Eliot sighed turning back to Nate. "I couldn't leave her alone. We shouldn't of left her alone last night. She might not be that crazy, but the way this job's goin' I'm not takin' another chance. Not with some kid's life."

There was an exasperated sigh from Adrian's corner of the room followed by a muttered "some kid can hear you."

Sophie looked between Nate, Eliot, and Adrian. Eliot was normally good with kids, but… then again Adrian was fifteen and not really a little kid by most standards. Not to mention she was a fifteen year old girl, Sophie was relatively sure no one was very good at communicating with fifteen year old girls. Add in Adrian's… issues… and the general situation...

"I'll take care of her while you all meet." Nate's mother said, slowly climbing to her feet crossing over to Adrian. "Adrian, are you hungry sweetie?"

Sophie smiled, in the process of crossing the room it was like a switch had been flicked. It was subtle, little things only a grifter would consciously notice, but it was like the air around Mrs. Ford changed from simply a senior citizen to "Grandmother." Something about the tone or word choice or… something. Sophie had never really had to try to play that part before but it seemed one that came naturally.

She winced internally a little at the realization Mrs. Ford was, or had been, a grandmother.

Adrian looked up from the book, apparently thrown off by the approach. "I… not really." She looked back down to her book, more mumbling than speaking to finish. "I already had lunch." She mumbled something Sophie couldn't quite make out after.

"What do you like to drink?" Clearly Mrs. Ford had heard the statement. A moment and mumbles later. "I'm not too sure what that is, you know in my day we had Coke and Pepsi and none of these newfangled diet strawberry decafe whatnots." Adrian's body language untensed a little. "Would you mind coming with me down to the cafeteria and help me find what you want?"

Adrian's eyes flicked up from her book and over toward them before back down. "I can go myself." Adrian said taking a deep breath like she was gathering herself to do just that.

"Well, I'm pretty sure you can, but I myself would like some tea right now, not to mention the last time I was down there they had what looked to be rather tasty chocolate muffins." There was just a flash of interest there and Sophie had a feeling they had her. "Do you like chocolate Adrian?"

Adrian nodded, her eyes actually settling on Mrs. Ford for longer than a moment.

"Well would you like to come with me to go see if we can find a few chocolate muffins and this…Diet Pepsi Maximum of yours."

Adrian looked toward them again, her attention going past Sophie to rest on Eliot and for half a moment Sophie could have sworn it was like Adrian was unconsciously asking permission. Before Sophie could turn to see Eliot's reaction Adrian took another deep breath and stood up, capping her pen and putting it in her pocket and hugging her book again before cracking a tentative smile and nodding.

A moment later the two had left the room.

"I couldn't leave her." Eliot said again once the door had closed behind the other two. "I went to check on her this morning. She'd had a rough night but she seemed to be doing alright this morning, alright enough to ask questions and try to figure out what was goin' on but… she cleaned up the mess she'd made, got her hands on one of the word find books I got her and shut down. Honestly just now was the first time I got more than two words outta her since noon."

Pieces started to click together and Sophie nodded about to explain when Nate spoke up. "She's learned how to function when she has to. So long as she can break things down into "I have to do this now" she can focus on doing what she has to when she has to and not on whatever's going on in her head. Hell, she's best off when she has to function. You can't will it away but if you can force yourself to stay busy and distracted it doesn't hurt as much." Sophie raised an eyebrow at the explanation. It was basically what she was going to say, but a bit more… personal… than usual.

Nate turned to Eliot. "You were right to bring her. She shouldn't be alone."

Sophie hesitated before pointing out the serious issue at the moment. "What do we do with her though? She can't go back in the system, not now at least. Your mother can't watch her forever. And we can't exactly hire a babysitter." There was a beat before she came to the same conclusion that it looked like Nate had already reached and Eliot had already accepted.

One of them had to watch Adrian. With Nate in the hospital, Parker well… Parker, and Hardison barely more than a kid himself Eliot and Sophie herself were the only two choices. Add in that Eliot could protect Adrian should situations arise, didn't sleep much to begin with if Adrian got worse, and she seemed to already have some amount of trust in the hitter…

Nate carefully asked Eliot. "You can do this?"

Eliot nodded.

A second later the quiet was shattered when the door opened to Parker asking, "Aren't they cute? They are cute right. I mean they're clothes for babies. That's supposed to be cute." As she walked in through the door.

Hardison followed a step behind her holding two pairs of baby booties made out of the type of yarn Parker's monstrosity had been made out of that morning.

The expression on Hardison's face made it pretty clear he didn't have any idea how Parker had managed to produce these from that in the sixteen hours since they last saw each other.

Parker pulled them from Hardison's hand and presented them to Eliot with the same question. "They're supposed to be cute right?" The moment Eliot instinctively moved to take them Parker let go and moved on. "Hi Nate. How are you feeling?"

The almost normal greeting was ruined by a smile that was clearly forced and the fact she glanced toward Sophie as she said it like she was checking in on behavior protocol.

Compared to Parker's usual behavior it was a pretty good show of normalcy.

"Well, I've been shot." Nate answered the inquiry about his health.

"Yeah I kinda noticed that." Parker responded. "I was talking about the whole long lost supposedly beaten to death half brother turning out to be Eliot thing."

So much for shows of normalcy and tact.

"I'm working on it." Was all Nate really had to say to that. Sophie didn't exactly blame him for not knowing what else to say. "Listen, I'm gonna be down for awhile I think we can safely put this job on hold for a few days, at least until I'm out of the hospital. I can trust you all not to get killed on a side job if you've got the next week off?"

He looked between them, though his gaze settled the longest on Eliot.

They all nodded.

"Good. And when we get back to business I'll be certain to take this as a warning and say it." His attention had turned to Parker.

"Say what?" Asked Hardison.

Parker's grin was the *almost* sweet smile she got when Nate showed he did in fact understand her better than was possible for most humans. With a certain amount of relish she said "Lets go steal something."

..........................................

A few minutes later Sophie nudged Parker and Hardison out of the room, telling Nate over her shoulder to get better as the three of them took their leave.

The two brothers looked at each other.

There was history here, a lot of it, more than they had known, or ever really guessed before now.

And it wasn't like they hadn't had a lot of shared history to begin with.

Where did they go from here?

Neither really knew.

"How's Joey?" Nate finally asked, breaking the silence. His vague recollection of the little girl becoming a little clearer with time.

"Good." Eliot answered. "She's married, got two kids. Eliot's twelve and Marie just turned ten." The words were automatic, though they felt strange on his tongue. He never talked about his family, not to people who didn't already know.

Nate looked surprised. "I've got a niece and nephew? And she named a kid after you?"

Eliot nodded. "We call him El. And yeah. You're gonna have two more soon too."

The understanding showed on Nate's face. "You're not having kids, yo- our sister is."

"Twins." Eliot nodded. "She wants me ta name them." He shook his head. This conversation was surreal.

"Her husband?"

"Scott Phillips, tax accountant, and a good man. He knows exactly what I'd do to him if he hurt her or the kids, but he wouldn't. He's so in love with her I think he'd kill himself first."

"Are you going to tell her you found me?"

That question took him off guard. "Why wouldn't I?"

The look Nate gave him was hollow eyed, not too different from the look he got when the subject of Sam was brought up.

Before Eliot could put together a response, or even figure out how in hell he was going to respond to that, and it wasn't like the fact the whole thing was wrapped up in the fact they were brothers and his response might effect how that changed their dynamic…

The door opened and Mrs. Ford and Adrian slipped back into the room.

Adrian was as subdued as she'd been when she left, though she now held onto an unopened bottle of Diet Pepsi Max like it was the holy grail of sodas.

Distantly, Eliot knew it was an energy soda and chances were Adrian would not be sleeping in the near future if that wasn't her first can of the day.

Distantly he half wondered why everyone who came in contact with their team had to be addicted to *something*.

Mrs. Ford's hand briefly rested on Adrian's shoulder as she passed the girl on her way to Nate's bedside, the girl relaxed into the contact.

Apparently the older woman had managed to comfort and connect with the girl somewhat.

Apparently that was still possible.

It eased a bit of worry Eliot wouldn't admit had formed inside his chest. There had been a handful of moments when Adrian had acted a bit like he imagined Parker would have been like at her age. As much as he liked Parker he didn't want to watch Adrian become her.

Mrs. Ford touched his own arm as she passed. "Take her home Eliot, I'll make sure Nate doesn't annoy the doctors too badly."

Eliot looked to Nate, that hollow eyed look still there and Eliot still didn't have any idea how to fix this mess. He didn't know how this would change their dynamic or how the team worked. He didn't know how to assimilate the past with the present or the future. This didn't make sense.

He looked toward Adrian with her soda and her word find book and exhaustion etched into every feature in ways it shouldn't be for someone her age.

Life really had gotten very, very far out of control.

"Alright." He muttered, nodding to Nate and Ms. Ford before turning away. A hand landed softly on Adrian's shoulder. "Ready to go?"

Adrian glanced up briefly, lips twitching into a small smile before she glanced back over to the bed. "Bye Mr. Ford. Bye Elizabeth." She looked back towards him and nodded before her eyes dropped back to the ground and she left.

Mrs. Ford's instructions to take care followed him out and Eliot realized he didn't know who she was talking to.

.........................................................

The drive back to the safe house was silent. Eliot tried to put today into some kind of order while Adrian stared out the window, her face as unreadable as Parker's.

In theory, he was the best choice to keep an eye on Adrian. He had experience with kids. He could protect her and he had this creepy suspicion that she trusted him.

But if this was going to work for more than twenty four hours he had to get his act together. She was fifteen years old and wouldn't require constant supervision, but she was clinically depressed and had just received some major blows and there was no telling what that was going to result in. He half felt like this was the grace period, that this semi functionality she'd been showing was the mixed result of her doing all she could to hold it together long enough to survive and not allowing herself to process the fact Selina was dead.

He had the bad feeling that it was only a matter of time until Adrian couldn't hold it together anymore.

He needed to get done what needed to be done now - while he still could.

He'd get them home, tell Adrian to stay downstairs while he made dinner. They'd sit down and eat and Eliot would lay down the basic rules and try to get Adrian to tell him what she needed and wanted. He'd tell her she'd eat meals with him but could get snacks when she wanted and he'd post a grocery list on the fridge. If she wanted something she should write it there and if it was reasonable they'd get it. Tomorrow he'd take her shopping for clothes and basic necessities (unless an amber alert on her was released; but if there wasn't one by now he doubted there would be).

With Nate's mention of her doing better if there was something she had to focus on in mind, Eliot made a note to ask her what she'd been doing in school before she was sent to the hospital and see if he could put together something for her to do. If she seemed at all up to it he'd probably try to get her to go running with him. Beyond just being good for her, exercise was a natural antidepressant. Since he doubted she'd willingly take any clinical ones in the near future it was the best he could offer.

Other than that he'd play it by ear. It would be at least a few days before Nate got out of the hospital. After that he'd have to juggle Adrian and the job for however long the con took and then he'd have to watch Adrian until they figured out where she'd go next.

There was no way he'd have her for less than a week and plenty of chance that it would be for two or three, or even longer.

He wasn't sure he could do this without becoming attached or emotionally invested…

He glanced sideways toward Adrian, still staring out the window with her Parker face on, before he turned his eyes back to the road, sighed, and mentally admitted defeat.

If it could help to keep the girl sitting next to him from being the next Parker or worse, he'd let himself become emotionally involved. He'd take care of her, try to help her through this, and find her a good home once it was over.

He could do that.

It was nearly an hour after they got "home" when Eliot was reminded of something his sister had once said about the futility of making plans for "later" when it came with kids.

One minute he'd been in the kitchen, finishing up the pasta and tomato sauce he was making for dinner, almost subconsciously keeping track of the sounds of Adrian working on one of her word find books in the next room.

Then there was a gasp and a crash and a choking sound, a pen falling onto a table top.

Eliot was in the other room before the pen had stilled but instead of enemies he found Adrian running for the bathroom, not even closing the door before collapsing in front of the toilet and retching, dry gagging after she'd lost what little she'd had in her stomach.

He stood, stunned, unsure what he was supposed to do. He quickly took in the room, trying to locate what had upset her or if she was simply ill. He noted her word find book had been thrown against the wall not more than a foot from him. There was a tear in the page, like she'd pressed to hard with the pen as she was circling a word. It was Adrian…

"_She'd also look for names of people she knew and other things…" She trailed off, looking it over a moment before pointing to a spot and showing it to Eliot. "She gave me this a week before she was taken, said it was proof of fate." The words "Selina" and "Adrian" had been circled, intersecting at the "a"._

He scanned the words around it and understood. Separated by the space of two letters was the word Mother.

Oh.

With far more hesitation than he'd used when approaching men with guns, Eliot crossed to the bathroom door and stood just outside the entrance. He had had all these well thought out plans for what to do at dinner but he didn't know what to do about the fact Adrian had gone from gagging to pressing herself into the empty space under the counter meant for a cabinet he'd taken out, and crying.

He never knew what to do about someone crying.

So he went with what he knew.

He retreated from the doorway just enough to grab the plastic cup that had landed near the bathroom door, for the moment not caring about the stain the contents had left on his carpet, and entered the bathroom. Quickly filling it halfway with water he knelt down in front of where Adrian had holed herself in and held it out. "Here." He said, offering the cup.

She had stopped crying but she stared at it like she didn't know what it was.

"To rinse out your mouth."

The hands that reached out for it automatically shook and he held onto it long enough to make sure she wasn't going to drop it. She pulled it back to herself and drank, looking as if she was thinking about nothing more than the task at hand. Focusing on what she had to do rather than what was in her head.

Looked like his plans for dinner wouldn't be going as planned. He'd get her through this moment when it looked like she had fully registered Selina was dead. He'd get her to the point where she could deal with it without drowning in it. Everything else would have to wait for later.

Now if he could only figure out how to do just that.

When the cup was empty she stared into it like she couldn't fully understand the concept that there wasn't any more.

This wasn't going well.

"Are you feeling a little better now?" He asked. Of course she wasn't but he didn't even know where to begin. He had to just say *something*. She gave him a look that plainly said what she thought of the question. "I guess not. You think you want to come out of there?"

Her slightly shaking answer caught him off guard. "Do I have to?"

After a beat he shook his head. "Nah, just doesn't look very comfortable."

She took a long, slow, breath pulling herself back under tighter control. "I like it."

"It makes you feel safe?" He hazarded a guess, offering a small smile. She nodded. "I've got a friend like that on my crew. Name's Parker." Adrian was watching him a little more intently than before. He shifted so he was sitting down Indian style. "Sometimes after a job goes south she'll sleep in the air ducts at our head quarters. Course the girl's twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag."

"Like me?" Came the question, with just a tiny hint of a twitch to her lips. Eliot didn't let it make him think she was okay. She looked ready to break down again at any second.

He shook his head, expression showing clear dismissal of the idea. "You ain't more than five pounds of crazy."

She actually smiled at that before it faded and she looked down. "Told you I wasn't that crazy." She said. "I'm not you know..." She took a breath, fingers of one hand reaching into the sleeve on her other arm, tracing over scars hidden by cloth. "Suicidal I mean… I'm not. That was the drugs and… a lot of stuff. But I'm not now. I have something I have to do. I have to stay alive until Zolcroft is taken down. Then I have to get into college somehow. Selina wanted me to go to college. She was helping me catch up in school so I could get into college." She ran out of breath and words for a few beats before mumbling. "I have to. She wanted me to."

He hadn't been expecting that.

It was a beat before he answered, it took that long to force himself past his instincts to not let this get personal. He'd already decided to let it. Hell, it had already been getting personal whether he let it or not. "That's good. Having a goal, I mean. I don't know much 'bout college, I never went, but I know having something you have to get is a good way to stay alive." One final breath before the plunge of trying to relate. Damn he wished Sophie was doing this, or that Adrian was a little kid he could just swoop in and save the day for. "It kept me alive through some tough shit, though it won't get ya through everything."

Adrian looked at him surprised and he took it as his cue to keep going. "When I was 'bout your age there was some bad stuff goin' on. It had been goin' on for a few years. I was… well I guess you can probably understand exactly what I mean when I say I was tired. But I have a little sister and I knew I had to protect her until I could get us out. That was my goal, it was all that mattered ta me…" He sighed, thinking back, remembering, glad that over the years he'd managed to work through most of what had happened so that it didn't hurt so badly to remember. "But eventually… you get too tired."

Adrian's words were just barely above a whisper when she asked. "did… Did you try?"

Eliot more felt himself nod than anything. "My friend Willie found me. Saved my life. I finally asked him for help and he helped get my sister 'n me out." He reached out, his hand gently wrapping around Adrian's. "Which is why I told ya that." She looked up, confused. He didn't exactly blame her, he seemed to be picking up on Nate's habit of speaking round about. Not to mention if any of the team heard what he meant they'd think he'd gone crazy and Parker'd probably start talking about Evil twins. "Sometimes we can't get through our shit on our own. Sometimes you need help. An' that's okay." For kids, he added silently, before begrudgingly adding and people on a team.

She whispered something he didn't quite catch all of, but he understood the request.

"That's what I do darlin'" He said, moving so his back was against the wall behind him.

Slowly Adrian uncurled and moved out of the nook and suddenly Eliot found himself holding Adrian, her face hidden in the crook of his neck just like Joey used to do when they were kids. Her entire body shook as she sobbed, and Eliot was just glad he'd already admitted defeat about keeping this job from getting personal. There would have been no helping it after this.

He held her, and let her cry herself out. He'd never known what to do when girls cried but he had a feeling that this was one occasion where the best thing to do was nothing. There wasn't really anything else he could do for Adrian right now besides hold her.

So he'd do that.


	7. Interlude: Part One

____

_**Notes:** This started out as a couple little drabbles to try to get a handle on Adrian's character and just kept going. This takes place between the end of chapter six and the night before Nate gets out of the hospital and the con happens. Told entierly from Adrian's point of view while she witnesses some events and continues the plot with Eliot._

* * *

**The In Between Days  
**_Interlude: Part One_

* * *

Later Adrian wouldn't remember much of the night she finally let herself process that Selina was dead.

She remembered the long drive home and focusing on the Pepsi max in her hands, cherishing her caffeine after having been forced to go cold turkey in the ward.

She remembered word searches and letting everything she couldn't deal with fade into a haze as her eyes scanned over countless letters that didn't seem to make sense to anyone but her.

She'd once told Kayla that when she looked at a word find page with one of those hidden messages she could tell what it was without finding any words.

It was how her mind worked, she had said, see the whole page and change your focus.

Kayla had told her she was nuts.

She'd reminded Kayla that they first bonded over the fact they were both nuts.

She tried to remember that conversation and not the one where they bonded for the last time over a pact to die together.

Adrian remembered the cold tile floor of the night after Selina died, and the cold porcelain of the toilet as she lost what little she had in her stomach, body responding to her violent need to just reject what she'd been told.

She remembered the shadows as she pressed herself into whatever tiny space she could.

She remembered words breaking through. She remembered Eliot.

She remembered strong arms, a wet shoulder, and barely visible scars on tanned skin.

She remembers crying herself out and her body going into a hard reboot and falling into a dreamless sleep.

Well. Almost dreamless.

She has a vivid memory of the smell of burnt pasta.

**oOo**

Waking up was a slow process for Adrian on the best days. On the other kind of days it was like a slow hard reset for a computer, a disk check running as she rebooted and started to process information again.

She waited for sensory input to function properly before opening her eyes, feeling the tee shirt and jeans and recognizing she'd slept in her clothes and only belatedly registering that it meant she really was out of the ward.

Darkness and quiet as her eyes slipped open told her it was night, the ceiling above her telling her she was at the safe house still.

She focused on those details, running in safe mode, not sure if she'd be able to function at a higher level yet.

That was when she heard a soft click clack and turn to look toward the other bed in the room.

She really should have been more surprised than she was at the sight of a thin blonde woman sitting on the other bed knitting something out of bright orange, green, and hot pink yarn.

She turned back to look at the ceiling muttering to herself. "Looks like I need to update my diagnosis." And well damn. She'd really hoped she would stay just chronic depression girl. Scitzo-effective disorder was a whole new ball game she really didn't want to mess with.

Of course that was schizophrenia comorbid with bi-polar disorder. She wondered what they'd call her.

"I'm real." The woman said.

"I'm sure that's what they all say." Adrian muttered as much to herself as the possibly real woman. "If you're not my head taking a new type of holiday who are you?"

"Parker." The possible hallucination answered. "I am on Eliot's crew. I'm keeping an eye on you for him. He had to get out for awhile and he didn't want to leave you alone." She made a slight face. "You weren't supposed to wake up before he got back." She gave a put out sigh.

"Sorry to bother you?" Adrian asked feeling somewhat lost. It was four oclock in the morning unless the clock on her nightstand was wrong. Parker looked like it was just another pleasant afternoon and Eliot had gone out.

Didn't people around here ever sleep?

"Do you like scarves or sweaters?" Came the question from Parker and Adrian was seriously reconsidering the whole "Parker is real" thing. "You make baby booties for people when they get a new kid but you're not a baby and Eliot isn't really getting you as a new kid but I stole all this yarn and Nate doesn't like it when we steal except for a client and with him in the hospital we should probably play by his rules for awhile so I need to make you something with it."

Adrian blinked, her brain decided it couldn't deal with trying to be anything but lost in the face of *that* statement and Adrian went for her long time default statement when those around her were being crazier than their diagnosis's or lack there of made completely necessary.

"There's something wrong with you."

The moment of shock then actual (if somewhat eerie) smile that crossed Parker's face was not helping refute that statement.

Parker did eventually retort. "You think I'm a hallucination."

Adrian nodded, not arguing that there wasn't something wrong with her as well. "I'm going back to sleep." She simply said turning around.

As she was drifting back to sleep she heard Parker say, almost seemingly to herself. "I'll make her a sweater."

She slipped back into sleep wondering when life had gotten so out of hands being clinically depressed started looking good when compared to the rest of the shit she was dealing with.

**oOo**

For Adrian depression wasn't an emotion. It wasn't feeling sad. It wasn't feeling nothing. It wasn't even the so called "oblivion" one of the inspirational guest speakers Selina had once brought to speak to their support group had referred to.

On better days Adrian would say depression was precipitation with bad manners.

It was a big, ugly, dark fog that rolled in without calling ahead to make sure you didn't already have plans, barged right on in without knocking, brought along a bunch of friends you don't like, settled in on your favorite chair and decided to stay as long as it damn well pleases while it's friends make so much chaos in your house you can't think straight.

The worse days she doesn't talk about extended metaphors.

The worse days she doesn't talk about much at all.

The worse day were when the fog was a weight behind her eyes, like the exhaustion of being up for two days straight. They were when she did nothing but sleep and still feeling that tired.

The worse days were when the fog made the world go out of focus and the air hard to breathe and her feelings slippery. They were everything causing her to feel like bursting into tears and actually bursting into tears for no reason at all.

The worse days were when the fog got too thick to see anything beyond the word find book or random web page in front of her and the little relief having something she could focus on but not think about gave her and knowing if she lets go of that for an instant she might fall apart.

The worse days were the in between days she doesn't even remember later.

**oOo**

When Adrian woke up in the morning the hard reset had completed but her mind was still running in safe mode and the fog had rolled in.

In muted silence she got up and dressed, came downstairs and turned on the TV. The shows not processing most of the time but the noise keeping silence from eating away at the fog as she tried to shove past it all and focus

She had a word find book. She had a pen. All she had to focus on was breathing and finding words.

Just see the whole page, pick a word, and focus.

Letters and words flew by spinning together into a wall to keep the fog out and at bay.

If only for a little while.

"Adrian." She blinked, shook herself mentally, and raised her eyes to look up to where Eliot stood nearby. When he saw he had her attention he continued. "I'm about to make some lunch. You like grilled cheese?"

She nodded slowly, trying to remember if she'd eaten breakfast. She wasn't hungry but if she hadn't (and she didn't think she had) she should eat something.

He nodded in response and continued. "Sophie is coming over later to make sure you're settled in." Adrian raised an eyebrow. It had been two days and Eliot had had her squared away within an hour. Eliot gave a small smirk. "Darlin' there are times when you just let the lady have her way. Side's she's gonna get you some clothes of your own. Her coming over gives you a chance to give a little input."

Adrian nodded again, managing a slight smile as the weight settled a little heavier behind her eyes and in her chest. The concept of talking to a relative stranger about clothes not one she wanted to consider when having her focus split between conversation with Eliot and breathing was difficult.

He seemed to notice because a moment later Eliot had sat down with her on the living room floor. Something about his manner seemed to change, she thought trying to pay attention and keep the conversation in focus. "How ya doin'?" He asked, voice just a hint softer than normal, just a bit smoother, a hand reaching out to settle on her shoulder.

The weight of it an anchor. Blue eyes seeking, understanding, compassionate.

Her lips twisted up into a forced smile, insistence that she was fine, that everything was okay bubbling up her throat as instinct built over the years kicked in and she started to straighten her posture, the small signs she'd been letting out that not all was well disappearing behind a well practiced front of health and soundness. "I'm f-"

"Bull shit." Eliot interrupted though his face didn't harden despite the words. As quickly as she'd pieced it together the faced started to unravel and Adrian looked away, drawing her knees up to her chest. "I need you ta be honest Adrian. I can't try to help you if I don't even know how you're doin'."

She swallowed against the wave of grief at the memory of a similar conversation with Selina and gripped her legs tighter. "…'m surviving." She finally answered more in a mumble toward her knee caps than actual speech to him. "'s not as bad as it can get. Just all foggy…"

"Foggy?" The word invited further explication while somehow managing not to demand it.

"Everythin's heavy and kinda out of focus and when I stop… when I stop focusing on something I start to feel it here." She tapped her knuckles against her collar bone. "Like air's too thick to breath. 'cept I know it's not. Not really."

"But when you focus on something?"

"It's a little easier…" She said looking back to the page she'd left in front of her. "But when I-"

Her next words were interrupted when the front door opened. They both looked up to see Sophie come into the house. "I'm a little early." She said almost apologetically, eyes watching the two of them on the floor.

Adrian picked the word find book back up off the floor and nodded just a little bit, mentally telling Eliot to go talk to his friend. She'd be fine.

She felt a hand settle on her shoulder again for half a second before Eliot was getting on his feet and joining Sophie.

Adrian watched from under the cover of a screen of hair as they met in the door way, speaking softly to one another. They looked comfortable together but Adrian's theory from the day before seemed confirmed that they were strictly business associates, or Maybe friends.

But there was no other interest there.

Though Adrian could have almost sworn from the way Sophie was watching Eliot she had some kind of agenda.

After a while in the system you learned to take serious note of any conversation grown ups were trying to have outside your hearing range and especially any that seemed to have an agenda.

The two walked through the living room and into the kitchen apparently just talking about how Nate was doing in the hospital. Once they were gone though Adrian took a deep breath, pulled herself a little more together and the world a little more into focus, got up and made her way into the kitchen under the pretense of getting a soda.

"It's been twenty years." Adrian heard Eliot snap as she approached the room and could make out their voices a little more distinctly. "None of that matters anymore."

"So the fact you just found out your boss is your half brother who abandoned you doesn't change things?"

Adrian paused. What?

When did this turn from Three Days of the Condor to The Young and The Restless? What next did they used to be having an affair or something?

Her half aborted last step toward the kitchen caught their attention though and she continued on.

Moments later she'd find herself mumbling through an explanation that she was pretty much just used to jeans, tee shirts, and sneakers to a seemingly somewhat disappointed Sophie.

Though the sight of Eliot all but face palming as he made grilled cheese sandwiches in the background was enough to cause her to smile a little.

Just a little bit of sunlight gleaming through the fog.

**oOo**

Later Adrian would remember little of the days that followed.

She wouldn't remember the routines that became rituals for her.

She wouldn't remember which day exactly Eliot first took her out running, though she has a vague recollection of him telling her to change into something she could excursive in. She also remembers him disappearing when she didn't respond definitively enough and coming back with suitable clothes and only somewhat gently nudging her into the bathroom.

She isn't sure if the morning she looked up from the pavement where she was focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and felt the sun on her skin and the fog lifting for just a moment was the first or second time he took her running with him but she knows it wasn't the last.

She wouldn't remember what they were eating when Eliot told her they'd eat at the table and she'd be in charge of washing the dishes.

She remembers the hand on her shoulder and understanding silence when she claimed it was raining indoors and that she wasn't crying because of the dishes she'd put off doing the night before she'd been taken and how she'd never be able to do them now.

She would also always remember the smell of the dish soap Eliot used.

She wouldn't remember the first evening she helped Eliot move things out of the living room floor so that he had enough room to train.

But she would remember that eventually they had to clear out a little more room.

She would never remember exactly when Eliot laid down the rules and that, until further notice, as far as he was concerned she was the chief threat to her own safety and he'd be keeping a close eye on her.

She also would never remember when looking up and seeing him there became just a little comforting.

But she knows it is.

**oOo**

She's pretty sure it's mid afternoon Saturday when Eliot warns her that another member of his team is coming over in a little while. After the fiasco with Sophie she thinks it's appropriate to take the statement as a warning.

Though, she was doing somewhat better today. The fog was starting to lift a little though she didn't kid herself by thinking it was going to be gone any time soon.

She's sitting at the kitchen table and Eliot's sitting across from her reading a book or on his laptop and it's strangely comfortable even if every so often she looks up to see him scowling at the later like he might be able to intimidate it into doing as told.

Sometimes when he's looking more frustrated than normal she wonders if he'd take offense if she offered to try to fix whatever problem he was having. She was a part of the internet generation after all.

The next time she looks up she bites back another offer to help and instead asks how many people there are on his team.

"Four others." He answers, looking up. "Nate's the leader, Sophie, Hardison, an' Parker. Hardison's the one coming over."

"What's his job?" She asked. "Nate is the boss. Sophie's is to trick people and be beautiful. What does Hardison do?"

Eliot shook his head like he was internally mumbling something about her state of being right in the head before answering. "Tech support."

Adrian couldn't hide the smile at that. So apparently she wouldn't have to try to not offend him by helping him.

"And Parker?" She asked, now feeling a little more hopeful that she hadn't actually hallucinated or dreamt about the woman.

Eliot paused for only half a beat before saying. "Acquisitions."

"Theif?" Adrian asked hopefully.

There was an odd, almost… proud… smile on Eliot's face when after another moment he responded. "The best in the world."

"So Hardison is a hacker?" Eliot nodded. "And you're batman?" That actually caused a bark of laughter from Eliot. "And together you're the A-Team?"

"Something like that."

Silence fell again for a little while as they both returned to their own activities though Eliot had put away his computer for a moment and was doing what Adrian secretly called the "puttering thing" where he wandered around the kitchen, looking in cupboards and drawers like he was seeing what he had on hand while deciding what to cook.

She had a theory that he could give her an inventory off the top of his head any day of the week but she figured it was ritual. Kind of like how he explained to her why they didn't just leave the space in the living room cleared out since neither of them would really be bothered if the furniture was permanently moved to the far corners of the room. He told her clearing the area and restoring it was partly just to help him make the transition in his mind. Now this is a place for fighting. Now I'm going to go back to acting as a civilian in my home.

She'd seen the sort of zen calm, no that wasn't right it wasn't zen but it was calm, he got when he was cooking. It was like when she did word finds. He found his center. Maybe him looking around to "see what he had" was him clearing his mind, seeing the whole kitchen, and focusing.

"You're watchin' me again." He commented over his shoulder and Adrian just smiled.

Eliot was definitely batman.

Though in honesty she'd spent a lot of the past few days watching him. He'd become her protector and care taker and a lot of things she wasn't quite ready to address enough to figure out if it was just her survival instincts reacting to the fact he was taking care of her or her actually beginning to feel like she had around Selina around someone else.

There were thoughts and feelings running around her head, getting lost in the fog but continually stumbling out of it to bump into her before disappearing again. One of these days the fog would lift enough for her to be able to catch up to them and metaphorically poke them with a stick until she figured them out.

Until then she'd keep watching Eliot.

And, if the way the hairs on the back of her neck stood up occasionally suggested was true he'd keep watching her.

He had actually made lunch and had just put a plate in front of her when the front door opened and, who she hoped was Hardison called out. "You really need to upgrade your alarm system Eliot, I hacked it one handed."

Adrian looked toward Eliot. "You turned the security system on?" She asked, a little confused. He'd told her early on that the security system was really just for when he wasn't staying here. While he was in residence nine times out of ten he knew there were intruders before the system did.

He shrugged. "If you let him mess with his computer things it's easier to get him to sit down ta eat something." With that said he put a third plate down at the table and called out. "Back here."

A tall young black guy made his way into the kitchen carrying what looked to be the entirety of a Radio Shack's computer department.

Well, that would explain the one handed comment.

Eliot gestured vaguely in the direction of a couple clear counters. "We're eatin' lunch now. You can get your geek on later." He sounded unusually bad tempered, his voice getting a fresh edge on it.

"You're just mad 'cause your gonna have to learn how to type something." Hardison shot back as he put down the big computer case he was carrying, a messenger bag, and a back pack before turning back to them. "Hey there. You must be Adrian." He said with a friendly smile. "I'm Hardison."

Adrian returned the smile. "That's me." Though she wasn't entirely certain what else to say to that. She'd run into this problem in the hospital. What do you say when meeting the A-Team after they saved your life and are trying to get revenge on your half. 'Hello and thanks for not letting a bunch of guys bump me off.'

And that wasn't even getting into Selina and frankly she wasn't sure she was ready to poke that mess with the metaphorical stick again.

"I brought ya something." Hardison said saving the moment from getting awkward. He picked up the messenger bag and brought it over handing it to her. She felt a very distinctive weight in the bag and a smile spread across her face as she found a padded pocket and unzipped it. A new lap top sat inside. "The basic operating systems and security software are installed plus a few games in case you want to branch out."

"Just as long as you're not tryin' to get her addicted to that world of spacecraft game of yours." Eliot grumbled.

"World of Warcraft." Adrian muttered not quite being able to take her eyes off the laptop as she took it out to look at it.

There was a few beats of silence before she looked up. "I had a foster brother who played it." She explained with a shrug. She slid the laptop back into the bag and slung it over the back of the chair turning a big smile toward Hardison half stammering through thank yous that she really ought to get better at saying. She'd been thanking people a lot lately.

As she was looking back down to her computer she caught an odd thing out of the corner of her eye.

Hardison looked toward Eliot with an unreadable expression and when she glanced over herself she could have almost sworn she caught him schooling a smile off his face.

After that Eliot not so gently nudged the conversation back to eating before the food got cold.

Adrian fell quiet over the meal, Hardison was already (trying) to talk Eliot through the reason he was over. He'd updated some security systems and protocols with the free time he'd had over the past few days and he needed to update Eliot's computers and show him how things worked.

Eliot spent most of the meal trying to get Hardison to stop talking in geek.

Adrian was lost a couple minutes into the techno babble Hardison was spewing and spent most of the meal trying to decide if they liked or hated each other.

They argued and teased and taunted each other like they hated each other.

Or like brothers.

Sophie had said Eliot had a half brother but she'd specified the boss was the half brother.

Wasn't Nate the boss?

By the time the meal was over Adrian excused herself to go to the living room and Hardison paused his argument with Eliot long enough to tell her how to securely connect with the internet and Eliot reminded her not to let anyone know where she actually was.

Adrian took a deep breath and bit down her initial "I'm fifteen, not stupid" response and just nodded.

Sometimes you just had to let things go.

As she logged onto the internet and tried to remember the password for her email account (and tried to contain her excitement for actually being able to get online again for the first time in over a month) she heard Eliot threaten to break Hardison's fingers only for Hardison to react without any hint of fear.

That was when she decided blood or not they were like brothers. It was the only explanation Hardison wasn't completely terrified of Eliot.

How exactly Batman and Timothy McGee got to that point was a puzzle to be worked out later.

But as she listened to the chaos in the background, the sound of it reminding her of the house with all the kids and all the chaos where she'd met Kayla…

Her stomach churned and her chest tightened and the sun started to slip away, fog settling back in deeper.

She hunched a little further around the computer in her lap, forced herself to breathe through the coming back and lose herself in cyberspace.

**oOo**

Fog first started rolling in when Adrian was twelve, she doesn't remember exactly when. She didn't identify it for a long time. It didn't start off bad. Just a haze some days. Or other days when she felt lethargic. Or others when her emotions felt slippery and slid between her fingers and all over her sleeve.

It didn't start getting thick until she was thirteen.

It was Kayla who first recognized her symptoms, realized there was something wrong in her new foster sisters head.

Who first took her to the meetings and got her help.

In those days Kayla and the others and Selina would hold her hand and help her walk through the fog and she knew they wouldn't let her get lost.

After they… after everything she spent a long time curled up with her word find, lost in the fog and too tired to even bother stumbling blindly or calling out a marco.

But after Selina's death she found herself on her feet with the vague sense that Eliot dragged her up there, lost in the fog with just the faintest hint of "pollo" being called out of the mist.

So she started to walk blindly into the fog and hope she wouldn't stay lost forever.

**oOo**

There were some things Adrian knew for certain.

She knew she could survive for two and a half weeks on nothing but Ramen, Easy mac, and cafeteria lunches. She might be able to go longer but Social services found out she'd been left alone by then and she'd finally gotten a half decent meal. She also knew Eliot's food was a much much better alternative.

She knew she was in love with the country rock singer/actor Eric Shank, as should be the rest of the female and gay population of everywhere. He'd never return the feelings but she could privately daydream as well as any fifteen year old.

She knew the American Puzzlemaster Company had the highest rate of mistakes in their puzzles of any word puzzle publisher she'd seen (don't even get her started on the fifth edition).

She knew she hated yellow crayons with a (probably unreasonable) passion. If anyone told her she was crazy for waxing poetic about black ink lines on white paper she'd remind them she'd been in a phyc ward when she discovered this hatred.

She knew she missed Selina, would probably always miss Selina like she'd always miss her parents. She missed her cooking, the way her house smelled, the way her face lit up when Adrian called her "mom".

And she knew she should really be over her hatred of hospitals by now.

But here she was. In the corner of a private room in a hospital while Eliot did the final security check for Nate getting out tomorrow, wondering why the hell he couldn't have just left her at home with a babysitter if he was still so set on not leaving her alone.

And she was trying to ignore the way the place made her skin crawl and the air get a little bit harder to breathe and the escapegetoutleavenow feeling she got the moment she went anywhere that smelled like a medical ward.

It didn't help that when Eliot had asked Nate to watch her he seemed to have taken the request very seriously. The man had hardly taken his eyes off her and it made her skin crawl even more.

She was just starting to zone out completely, almost starting to get lost in the fog when he broke the silence. "How are you two doing?"

She looked up, catching those eyes startingly similar to Eliot's, and giving her automatic reaction. "I'm fine."

"And Eliot?" Nate asked an odd look on his face before it shifted into something friendly, gentling even.

The people on Eliot's team were very strange.

"He's Eliot." She said in response, feeling a little lost as to why Eliot would be other than fine. She didn't think Eliot knew how to be other than fine.

More minutes ticked by in silence.

Then Nate shifted and when Adrian looked up he was nodding to himself and smiling like he'd figured something out just from watching her.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"Eliot should be back soon." He said finally then after a moment he added. "Keep an eye on him for us."

The last bit caught her off guard but when she met those blue eyes, so very like Eliot's but so very different she found herself nodding. There was something going on, a lot going on, most of which she didn't in any way understand.

But as absurd as it sounded she understood that she'd been given something to do, she'd been given a job.

And she could focus on that.

And try to ignore the feeling that she'd been conned in a single sentence and how utterly terrifying that made Nate.

**oOo**

When Adrian was little, when her parents were still alive, her father used to take her outside just after the sun went down. She'd chase fireflys around their yard and he'd chase her and eventually he'd speed up enough to catch her, swinging her into the air as she shrieked with mock protests. He'd hold her up in the air and call her his little fire fly.

Somehow they'd end up laying on their backs in the grass, staring up at the stars overhead.

She was only four when he taught her about the big dipper and how it would help her find her way if she ever got lost.

She'd been fascinated by the names of the stars and that they were, in her mind, giant connect the dot puzzles in the sky. Her father would point to a cluster and tell her what they were supposed to be and she'd spend long moments drawing mental lines between the dots, trying to make out the pictures he'd told her.

He was dead before she really grasped the concept of constellations.

But over the years since she's taught herself everything she could about the stars as a way to hold onto those summer nights when the vastness of the universe was made comforting by the arm she was resting her head on and the warm presence by her side.

Kayla had always teased her that it was no surprise The Lion King was her favorite Disney movie.

She'd lost count over the years of how many times she'd pissed off her current foster family by climbing out of a window onto the roof or a fire escape just to *be* under the stars.

She should have known she wouldn't have even settled on the roof of the back porch of the town house after slipping out the window before Eliot burst into her room like he suspected she was in the process of being kidnapped.

Yet another piece of proof that Eliot was indeed batman.

She sighed and aborted her attempts to settle herself. "Sorry. Sorry." She mumbled to him through the open window, keeping her eyes on the roof to make sure she didn't lose her footing. "I'm okay just wanted to be outside." No response came from Eliot and she sighed. "I'm coming back inside."

She didn't expect him to say. "Let me join you and you can stay out there." She looked up, surprised, and he explained. "We're away from the streets and the perimeter's secure enough but if I'm out here I can keep a watch for trouble." He smiled that grin of his. "Plus it's to nice a night ta stay inside if you don't have ta."

She moved over on the roof trying to take the fact he was apparently worried for their safety in stride. "Alright, but question. This trouble… are we talking snipers and if so are these snipers are trying to kill me? And if so should I be inside?"

Eliot actually laughed. Which wasn't as comforting as it could have been. "Trouble we're talking 'bout is a hitter being paranoid. This is the safe house I set up for my team. It's 'bout as safe as I can make it."

"It's a townhouse in the suburbs of Boston." Adrian pointed out. Sure it had a panic room in the basement that had a second door leading to the sewers but still…

"Every window's made out of the same kind of bullet proof glass they use for the windows of the oval office. All the walls have been reinforced and made as close to fire proof as you can get. Doors have a steel core. Backup generator and water supply. Panic room with an escape tunnel. Oh." He added. "an' me in residence. The place could hold out against a pretty decent siege. But that's not why it's so safe. It's safe because it's a townhouse in the suburbs. Cause 'm nice to the neighbors and pay my Home Owners Association dues on time and keep my lawn nice even if I'm always away on business."

Adrian caught onto his drift. "You can't attack what you can't find and finding this is like finding a needle cleverly disguised as a piece of straw in a hay stack."

He nodded approvingly before settling back against the roof and looking upward. "Selina did say you were clever."

That comment made her swallow against a lump in her throat and blink up at the stars.

Though it also sparked something warm into her chest.

"What were you doing out here?" He asked after a moment.

The explanation for her and stars died on her tongue. She didn't want to talk about that right now. She just wanted that comfort without the memories.

"I was looking for the north star." She said. She had been. She'd been feeling lost for a long long time and her father had always told her to look for the north star when you felt lost.

Eliot paused a moment before pointing upwards. "There." He said before moving his finger to sketch out the outline of the constellation.

She looked up into the heavens, following his finger until she could locate it. She raised a hand of her own, tracing the links between the stars in her minds eye. "Ursa minor, Ursa major." She half whispered before moving on, now that she'd oriented herself, finding other constellations. "…Orion."

"Someday you should see the stars out in the country. Nothin' quite like an Kentucky night sky." Eliot tells her. He sits up and takes off his jacket, tossing it over to her before leaning back again without saying a word.

She hadn't even realized she'd been shivering.

She slips the jacket on as he keeps talking. "You normally can't see the milky way from here. It's cleared up a lot these past few days."

She finishes zipping the jacket and looks up to find he's watching her again.

Slowly, carefully, testing the movement as much with herself as with Eliot she shifts to sit closer to Eliot, her eyes never quite leaving his.

Just as slowly he reaches out an arm to wrap around her shoulders.

There is a silent moment that isn't so much a promise being made as something being offered and the threads of two lives untangling from a haphazard not and being twisted together for the first time.

Adrian didn't know what would come next.

But she did know that as she settled back against the roof the expanse of the universe above felt safer than it had in a long time and for a few brief moments the fog in her head cleared out.

And she could just breathe.


End file.
